Campaign for Reparation
Former Lebanese Political Detainees in Syria (LPDS) is a group of former Lebanese detainees in Syrian detention centres who came together to push the Lebanese Government to recognise their needs and provide them with necessary support and reparations. In 2008, LPDS met the Lebanese Forces (LF) leader Samir Geagea to share their cause, appealing to him as a former prisoner. Few months later, the LF produced and pushed for a draft law providing compensation to former detainees in Syrian prisons. The parliament rejected the law and sent it to the Committee of Administration and Justice for revision. The next year, they met MP Ibrahim Kanaan from the Free Patriotic Movement, who later produced an urgent draft law affirming to give former detainees in Syrian prisons the right to the same reparations that their counterparts in Israeli prisons were entitled to by the government. In 2013, and after years of lobbying, the draft made its way to the budget and finance committee, but has never been issued. Between 2011 and 2013, LPDS archived 250 names of Lebanese detainees in Syria in partnership with UMAM Documentation and Research (UMAM D&R). UMAM D&R provided financial support and a safe space for LPDS members to meet and discuss their concerns. They also conducted a photo exhibition in Beirut and Tripoli, which helped collect and archive more names of detainees in Syrian prisons from Tripoli. LPDS published several books including Alkharejoun men Al-Qobour and Aa’ed men Jahanam, as well as a catalogue under the title ‘Missing’ dedicated to the identification of 700 detainees in Syria.