Conflict Incident Report

BEIRUT: Relatives of inmates from a north Lebanon border region staged a protest on Wednesday to demand faster trials and general amnesty for their family members. The National News Agency reported that demonstrators in the town of Beqaya in Wadi Khaled briefly blocked a road at the entrance of the town in the northern district of Akkar. Protesters held banners demanding the judiciary to accelerate trials for those detained in Lebanese prisons in addition to general amnesty. “There is no good in a nation [that] forgets its people in its prisons,” read one banner. Approximately 60 detainees from the Wadi Khaled area are alleged to be awaiting trial, the NNA said. The protest comes at the heels of a series of recent protests in the north, east and southern parts of the country demanding general amnesty for detainees that have been held without trial for protracted periods of time, over a variety of alleged crimes.