Conflict Incident Report

The families of prisoners – some of whom have been held without trial – staged another sit-in Sunday, following news that a prominent sheikh called on inmates to start a hunger strike to call for a general amnesty.

“[They] are not terrorists and [they] have the right to general amnesty,” the families chanted as they blocked roads in central Tripoli. Radical Islamist Sheikh Khaled Hoblos, who is currently serving a prison sentence on terrorism offenses, released an audio message calling for a mass hunger strike across Lebanese prisons Saturday to press for general amnesty for all prisoners. In an audio clip, aired by local TV channel LBCI, Hoblos urged prison administrators not to force inmates to back down on the hunger strike and argued that such an act of protest was a “right guaranteed by the law.”