Committee against Torture

Sixtieth session

Summary record of the 1509th meeting

Held at the Palais Wilson, Geneva, on Thursday, 20 April 2017, at 10 a.m.

Chair:Mr. Modvig

Contents

Consideration of reports submitted by States parties under article 19 of the Convention (continued)

Initial report of Lebanon

The meeting was called to order at 10 a.m.

Consideration of reports submitted by States parties under article 19 of the Convention (continued)

Initial report of Lebanon (CAT/C/LBN/1)

At the invitation of the Chair, the delegation of Lebanon took places at the Committee table.

Ms. Riachi Assaker (Lebanon), introducing her country’s initial report (CAT/C/LBN/1), said that international legal instruments were enshrined in the Lebanese Constitution, which provided for the separation of judicial, executive and legislative powers. The Constitution guaranteed the independence of the judiciary and ensured that no one could be arrested, detained, imprisoned or sentenced other than by law. Lebanon was one of the few countries to have welcomed delegations from the Committee against Torture and the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture, which had been allowed to travel freely, carry out investigations, visit detention centres and prisons, conduct interviews and meet high-level officials and representatives of non-governmental and civil society organizations.

The Syrian crisis, which had been continuing for over six years, had created a number of unprecedented threats, including the escalation of terrorism on Lebanon’s eastern border and the presence of terrorist cells within Lebanon, which security forces were doing their utmost to dismantle. The crisis in the region had also given rise to a number of economic, social and policy challenges, including a vast influx of Syrian refugees that far exceeded the capacity of a relatively small country such as Lebanon. Refugees and displaced persons from Syria and Palestine now made up over half of the population, creating an exceptional situation and exacerbating several problems, including prison overcrowding.

In spite of the challenges it faced, the Government had taken a number of measures to promote human rights, including a decision by the Council of Ministers to construct five prisons in different provinces. The Director of the Directorate-General of General Security had designed a model prison that took international rules and standards into account, particularly with regard to the arrest of foreign nationals. Furthermore, the Department of Penitentiary Centres had applied a strategy that brought the management of prisons within the purview of the Ministry of Justice.

The Lebanese Army had set up the Directorate of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, the role of which was to disseminate a culture of human rights among members of the Lebanese armed forces, particularly those responsible for investigations and inquiries. It was obligatory for all military bodies to conduct investigations into human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law. The Directorate-General of Internal Security Forces had established a strategy that took international standards on human rights into account, and the Directorate-General of General Security had set up a human rights division whose members were governed by an appropriate code of conduct. Awareness-raising campaigns aimed at persons responsible for handling detainees and suspects were conducted to ensure that the human rights of detainees, including the right to a fair trial, were upheld. Information on general security was also distributed to judges, members of the armed forces, the internal security forces and lawyers, in order to promote and strengthen human rights institutions in Beirut and Tripoli.

Under Act No. 62 of 27 October 2016, the decision had been taken to set up a national human rights institution and a committee for the prevention of torture that would operate in accordance with the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and be responsible for adopting urgent legislation to ensure that human rights violations could be dealt with appropriately. The members of the committee, who would be free to act independently in accordance with the Paris Principles, would shortly be appointed. As part of the Government’s efforts to protect human rights, a State Minister for Human Rights Affairs had also been appointed.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were free to conduct visits to places of detention and cooperated with the Government in the promotion and protection of human rights. Acts of torture had been carried out in only a few, isolated cases that did not correspond to any kind of State policy. Those who perpetrated such acts were held to account and punished under Lebanese law.

Mr. Touzé (Country Rapporteur), noting that the Government of Lebanon had submitted its report 15 years later than expected, said that the reporting period to be considered by the Committee was therefore particularly long. The Committee was nonetheless pleased to see that the State party showed a clear desire to promote and protect human rights, in spite of the particularly tense and complex situation that it faced. Noting the adoption at the end of 2016 of an Act establishing a national human rights institution and a national preventive mechanism, he asked when the State party intended to announce the establishment of the bodies in question and what procedure and criteria would be used to appoint the members of those bodies.

As the State party had acknowledged in its report, its domestic legislation was not in accordance with article 1 of the Convention. In view of the fact that steps to amend the legislation in question had been initiated in December 2012, he wished to know when the reform would be adopted, whether it would be subjected to further amendments that would strip it of its substance, and whether it would concern only article 401 of the Criminal Code.

Noting that the amendment of article 401 of the Criminal Code would not be sufficient to bring the State party’s domestic legislation into line with the Convention, he said that the Code of Criminal Procedure should also be amended to ensure that it provided for penalties appropriate to the gravity of crimes involving torture. He asked the State party to explain the reasoning behind the penalty mentioned in paragraph 53 (3) of the report, which violated the Convention, and the penalties mentioned in paragraph 234, which fell short of the requirements of the Convention.

The State party should make further amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure to ensure that witnesses would be afforded protection. In view of the fact that, under current legislation, crimes involving torture were subject to statutory limitation, articles 10 and 24 of the Code of Criminal Procedure should be amended to ensure that such crimes were imprescriptible, as required by the Convention.

The Committee would welcome further information on the provisions set out in articles 185 and 249 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which appeared to provide for situations in which acts of torture could be justified. The provisions in question should be modified to ensure that they could not be invoked to justify acts of torture. Further information would also be welcome on Act No. 84/91 of 26 August 1991 and Act No. 677 of 19 July 2005, which could be invoked to grant amnesty to perpetrators of acts of torture.

Although various proposals for legislative reforms were mentioned in the report, legislation currently in place did not specifically criminalize the crime of torture and did not cover various acts that were prohibited by the Convention. In particular, the existing legislation did not appear to cover cases in which an individual was subjected to intimidation or psychological torture by the authorities. In view of that situation, the Committee would welcome information on how the current legislation was applied in cases not explicitly covered by the applicable law. The question of the implementation of existing laws was particularly pertinent as statistics provided by NGOs indicated that, in 2009 and 2010, judges had rarely investigated allegations of torture, rarely heard detained persons and, in some cases, threatened detainees with being tortured again.

Noting that, according to paragraph 224 of the report, persons accused of acts of torture were sometimes acquitted because they were expert at committing such acts without leaving any visible physical marks, he wished to know whether the State party’s acknowledgement of that situation constituted an explicit acceptance of the fact that torture was carried out by the authorities. The State party should provide precise details of the number of investigations into allegations of torture that had been carried out and the number of proceedings that had been initiated in respect of acts of torture. Information on acts of torture committed by or against Lebanese citizens outside the State party’s territory would also be welcome.

The Committee wished to know which military courts had jurisdiction over acts of torture and what the exact nature of that jurisdiction was. In particular, it wished to know whether civilians could be tried by military courts; what amendments would be made to the legislation on the jurisdiction of such courts; and how many children had been brought before such courts. Would the State party also comment on allegations that individuals brought before military courts had been detained in secret, questioned without a lawyer being present and subjected to ill-treatment and torture, including torture used to extract confessions?

Noting that, according to statistics provided by NGOs, 60 per cent of those who had been arrested claimed to have been subjected to acts of torture, he asked for precise details of the number of complaints, investigations, prosecutions and criminal and/or disciplinary sanctions handed down to perpetrators of acts of torture or ill-treatment since the State party had ratified the Convention.

According to the Committee’s report on its fifty-first and fifty-second sessions (A/69/44), torture in Lebanon was a pervasive practice that was routinely used by the armed forces and law enforcement agencies. In view of that observation, he asked whether measures had been taken to ensure that torture was no longer systematically practised. In particular, he requested information on cases of torture involving persons deprived of their liberty; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) persons who had been deprived of their liberty; persons who had been arbitrarily detained; and domestic workers.

In 2006, several individuals had been arrested and tortured on suspicion of “collaborating with the enemy”. In view of the fact that, in some cases, the persons arrested had been detained in private prisons, the State party should provide clarification on whether, as implied by paragraph 341 of the report, persons were held in secret detention despite the fact that such detention was prohibited by the Code of Criminal Procedure. In its response, the State party should refer to both State and non-State places of detention.

He asked whether the State party had investigated the allegations concerning Ghassan Slaybi, arrested with family members and friends in 2006, Rami Aysha, a journalist initially detained by the members of a militia in 2012, Walid Diab, a minor detained at a military checkpoint in Tripoli in 2014, and Layal al Kayaje, who had been detained in 2016 for defaming the Lebanese military. It would also be interesting to learn what steps, if any, the State party had taken in response to the alleged torture of seven persons detained in the wake of an altercation in June 2013, the beating of prisoners after a riot in Roumieh prison in 2015, and a recent report by Human Rights Watch alleging that military personnel had tortured eight civilian detainees, including two children.

Turning to cases involving LGBTI persons, he said that he wished to know how many persons had been prosecuted since 2010 under article 534 of the Criminal Code, which prohibited sexual relations that contradicted the laws of nature. In the same connection, he asked whether the case of a Syrian refugee who had been detained on suspicion of homosexuality and subjected to ill-treatment by military intelligence officers in early 2016 had been investigated and, if so, whether the investigation had resulted in any prosecutions or convictions. Other incidents on which additional information — in particular regarding any investigations, prosecutions or convictions — would be welcome included the 2012 raid on a cinema in which 36 men, who were later subjected to anal examinations, had been arrested and the arrests and ill-treatment, in August 2014, of the clients and employees of a Turkish bath.

He would welcome information about the efforts that the State party had made to give effect to the recommendations of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in its opinions No. 44/2012 (A/HRC/WGAD/2012/44) and No. 48/2014 (A/HRC/WGAD/2014/48). In addition, he asked whether the Lebanese authorities were of the view that the number of deaths of female domestic workers from outside the State party was as high as estimated by some NGOs and, more generally, what view they took of the numerous reports that such workers were often subjected to ill-treatment and abuse by their employers, who were rarely or never punished.

He asked why the State party had not ratified the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, in particular since its practices appeared to be line with that Convention. He invited the delegation to indicate the steps that had been taken by the State party to ensure that the refugees in its territory, who numbered more than a million, most from the Syrian Arab Republic, lived in decent conditions. In addition, he wished to know how many asylum seekers or refugees had been denied legal residency in the State party as a result of increasingly burdensome residency requirements. The recent regulation waiving the US$ 200 residency permit renewal fee for refugees who had registered with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) before 1 January 2015 was a welcome development, but he asked what the situation was for the more than 500,000 who were not eligible for the waiver. He would welcome an explanation of the 14 troubling expulsions of non-Lebanese nationals that had been denounced by UNHCR.

Regarding fundamental legal safeguards, the delegation should indicate whether any law enforcement or other officials had been punished for having held persons in police custody for longer than the period allowed by law and, if so, how many such cases there had been. The delegation should address the State party’s apparent failure to ensure that suspects taken into custody could exercise their rights to the assistance of counsel and to a medical examination by a physician of their choice. The delegation should also comment on allegations concerning the existence of places of detention — in the basement of the recently opened Internal Security Forces headquarters building in Achrafieh, for example — where acts of torture had been observed.

He would welcome comments on reports that nearly 70 per cent of detainees in the State party’s prisons were awaiting trial, that judicial delays very often meant that suspects were in pretrial detention for a period as long as the longest sentence they could have been given if convicted, and that suspects’ confessions were sometimes made available to the media even before they were brought before a judge. It would be interesting to know what efforts the State party had made to ensure that persons deprived of their liberty could exercise such rights as the right to the assistance of an interpreter. In addition, the delegation should comment on reports of severe overcrowding and a failure to separate minors and adults in places of detention such as the Baabda courthouse and jail. Comments would also be welcome on allegations that more than half of the women arrested in the State party in 2013 and 2014 were subjected to torture, often by plain-clothes military or intelligence personnel seeking to obtain confessions. He requested an update on the ongoing suit for defamation that the Amal Movement had brought against the Lebanese Centre for Human Rights, an NGO, in what seemed to be an act of reprisal for the Centre’s publication of a report denouncing the acts of torture allegedly committed by the Lebanese security forces.

Mr. Hani (Country Rapporteur) said that he welcomed the State party’s acceptance of the inquiry procedure provided for in article 20 of the Convention. Lebanon had been the first country from the Middle East and North Africa Region to cooperate with the Committee in that regard. The vibrancy of the country’s civil society was also to be commended.

Turning to the issue of the State party’s international commitments, he wished to know what measures had been taken to ensure that the State party’s coming periodic report would be submitted in timely fashion and that the recommendations made by the Committee, including the 36 made in the wake of the article 20 inquiry and reproduced in the Committee’s 2014 annual report (A/69/44), were acted on. He asked whether the State party intended to recognize the competence of the Committee to receive and consider communications from a State party claiming that another State party was not fulfilling its obligations under the Convention, and to receive and consider communications from or on behalf of individuals.

The Committee had been struck by the complexity of the bodies, sometimes overlapping, responsible for ensuring the rule of law in the State party. Powers that should have been in the hand of the sovereign State too often seemed to rest with non-State armed groups, a situation that could favour the development of a culture of impunity. In that connection, he would welcome a comment from the delegation on a troubling indictment for drug trafficking, which clearly indicated that the person under indictment had been detained and turned over to Lebanese law enforcement officials by a security committee of the Amal Movement, a political party with no apparent law enforcement powers. It would be interesting to know whether members of the Movement had been deputized to act as law enforcement agents, whether any measures had been taken to ensure that the law was enforced by agents duly authorized by the State, and whether any efforts had been made to punish persons who, claiming to represent the State, had committed acts in breach of the Convention.

He asked whether the Lebanese authorities had made any efforts to punish the members of the non-State armed groups who, according to the findings of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, had committed crimes tantamount to war crimes outside Lebanese territory. In addition, he wished to know what plans the State party had made to cooperate with the mechanism to be set up by the Commission with a view to prosecuting the perpetrators of the crimes against humanity committed by all parties to the Syrian conflict.

With regard to training, he enquired about the number of judges who had received training in the provisions of the Convention. While the report provided information on the training of medical personnel, the Committee had been informed that training in forensic medicine still left a great deal to be desired. He would appreciate receiving statistical information regarding the number of law enforcement personnel, medical personnel and judicial officers working in prisons and detention centres who had received training in the Istanbul Protocol.

The Committee had been informed that in 2016 the Association of Justice and Mercy (AJEM) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) had tried to organize a training course for members of the national committee tasked with monitoring torture, but that the course had been cancelled at the last minute by the Internal Security Forces without any explanation. He would appreciate information about the reasons for its cancellation.

He commended the decision to construct five new prisons, a prison for persons with specific security requirements and a prison for foreign nationals. The State party had admitted that there was severe overcrowding and had provided statistical data in the annexes to the report; the Committee would appreciate updated figures. It was also essential to segregate remand and convicted inmates. Moreover, the Committee had been informed that, contrary to the State party’s contention in paragraph 430 of the report, male, female and juvenile detainees were not always segregated.

He commended the complaint mechanisms for detainees described in the report and its annexes; however, the victims allegedly found them somewhat complicated. He asked what measures would be taken to create a simpler complaint mechanism that was also fully independent.

NGOs who visited detention facilities seemed to focus on providing humanitarian and social services. He asked whether the State party would permit NGOs to conduct visits to inspect and investigate prison conditions.

The report mentioned the existence of inter-prisoner violence, and he asked what steps were being taken to address the problem. There had been also many complaints concerning prison conditions, for instance regarding inadequate health-care services and nutrition and the lack of basic guarantees of hygiene, especially in Roumieh prison. He asked whether the State party had taken steps to improve prison conditions.

Overcrowding was reportedly also a problem in police station holding cells, Ministry of National Defence detention facilities, and prisons that were monitored by the Directorate-General of the Internal Security Forces and the Directorate-General of Public Security. What measures were being taken to limit overcrowding and to prevent abuse in such facilities?

He wished to know how many prisoners were still facing the death penalty in the State party.

Returning to the indictment for drug trafficking issued against Shadi Ibrahim Omar, he noted that during the initial investigation the alleged perpetrator had denied the allegations and stated that he had been beaten during the interrogation process. However, the judicial authorities had failed to investigate the allegations of torture and ill-treatment, as stipulated by the Convention.

Many NGOs had complained of the lack of compensation and rehabilitation for victims of ill-treatment. He therefore welcomed the plan to create a forensic medicine centre in Tripoli and asked whether procedures had already been developed to extend the plan, following an assessment, to courts of justice in all governorates. He also wished to know whether the aim was solely to rehabilitate victims or also to conduct investigations pursuant to the Istanbul Protocol and to prosecute perpetrators of acts of torture or ill-treatment.

He asked whether the bill introducing penalties for torture and ill-treatment would contain provisions guaranteeing victims’ right to redress and compensation. There seemed to be two versions of the bill; the first was apparently drafted by civil society organizations and the second by Government bodies.

Many NGOs claimed that in a number of cases judges had ignored article 15 of the Convention, which stipulated that statements obtained as a result of torture should not be invoked as evidence. In particular, Human Rights Watch had mentioned eight cases in which torture had allegedly occurred during the investigations, but the justice system had failed to declare the evidence null and void.

He asked whether the independence and integrity of the judiciary was undermined by corruption in the State party and, if so, whether measures were being taken to combat the phenomenon.

Mr. Bruni said that he wished to know whether a precise date had been fixed for the establishment of the national human rights institution. As the Optional Protocol had been ratified in 2008, it was high time to establish a national preventive mechanism.

According to the report, the Criminal Code did not explicitly mention torture as a punishable offence. However, article 547 and subsequent articles prescribed a sentence ranging from 15 years of hard labour to hard labour for life in cases where physical torture led to murder. He asked how a judge could impose such a severe penalty for a crime that was not explicitly mentioned in the Code. He also wished to know what was meant by hard labour. It should not be a penalty that contravened the Convention.

The authorities had been encouraged to adopt an amendment to article 401 of the Criminal Code, which defined the offence of torture and appropriate penalties. Under the bill as described in paragraph 234 of the report, if the torture led to death, the offender would be liable under the amended Code to a penalty of detention for 10 to 20 years. The penalty prescribed in article 547 of the existing Code, namely 15 years of hard labour to hard labour for life, was far more severe. He enquired about the grounds for the more lenient penalty.

He commended the establishment of a standard system for filing complaints against officers of the Internal Security Forces and the issuance of a service note on implementation of the Convention by the Directorate-General of the Internal Security Forces in 2014. He asked how many complaints of torture or ill-treatment had been received since the establishment of the system and what action had been taken on such complaints.

The report failed to specify the point at which arrested persons were entitled to legal assistance. He asked whether lawyers could assist detainees during their interrogation, how many times they could meet their lawyer and whether the meetings were strictly private.

The Committee would appreciate information about arrangements for the supervision and monitoring of prisons, particularly prisons run by the Internal Security Forces, which gave rise to most allegations of ill-treatment. He also asked whether independent bodies could make unannounced visits to detention facilities run by the Internal Security Forces or the Ministry of National Defence.

The report had acknowledged the existence of overcrowding and poor conditions in all detention facilities and had referred to measures to address such problems in the short, medium and long terms. It appeared that the overcrowding ratio in late 2015 was 185.8 per cent. He asked whether the State party had considered introducing alternative penalties to imprisonment.

Ms. Belmir said that she welcomed the drafting of a bill that transferred jurisdiction for offences of torture from the military courts to the ordinary courts.

According to the report, Lebanese law did not exclude offences of torture from the scope of application of the statute of limitations. She hoped that the bill introducing penalties for torture and ill-treatment would remedy that shortcoming.

She noted that there were a number of specialized courts in the State party’s judicial system, such as the Higher Council of the Judiciary, the Justice Council and the military courts. The Justice Council could not be fully independent because the Council of Ministers appointed its members and decided which matters should be referred to it. Moreover, according to article 366 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, decisions taken by the Justice Council could not be appealed to a higher jurisdiction. The members of military courts, which dealt with cases deemed to pose a threat to national security, were also appointed by the executive authorities. She was concerned about the broad scope of their jurisdiction, including with respect to civilians, and the fact that their decisions could not be appealed to a higher jurisdiction, either. The State party should take steps to align the judicial system with the principle of independence of the judiciary, to guarantee the right to a fair trial, to combat corruption and to prevent political interference in legal affairs.

According to the report, there had been acquittals in cases of torture in the State party on the ground that it was difficult to prove that the alleged victim had suffered physical or mental injuries, especially in cases where the perpetrators had acquired expertise in leaving no evidence of ill-treatment. Moreover, there was no requirement for persons deprived of their liberty to undergo medical examinations throughout the investigation and no legal protection for witnesses in cases involving torture. She strongly urged the State party to address those shortcomings.

Ms. Gaer noted that the State party had admitted in the report that no statistical data were currently available on diverse matters, including on complaints of torture and the results of the investigations. She nevertheless hoped that the delegation might provide some further statistics.

The Committee had been informed that article 522 of the Criminal Code prevented prosecution or execution of the penalty when perpetrators of rape, kidnapping or statutory rape married the victim. She understood that the Parliamentary Committee on Administration and Justice had approved the repeal of that article in December 2016 but that the Lebanese Parliament had not yet voted on the proposal. She asked whether the Government was encouraging the Parliament to take that step.

Referring to the summary account of the results of the proceedings concerning the inquiry on Lebanon, contained in Annex XIII of the Committee’s report on its fifty-first and fifty-second sessions (A/69/44), she wished to receive clarification of the relationship between Hizbullah and the State, including whether Hizbullah was empowered to carry out sovereign functions such as the enforcement of border security and the operation of detention centres. If that was the case, it would be useful to hear how the Government ensured that those activities were undertaken in compliance with the State party’s obligations under the Convention. It was unclear whether any State authority monitored the conditions at detention centres controlled by Hizbullah. She would welcome information on whether allegations of the presence of instruments of torture in those facilities had been investigated and on whether any members of Hizbullah had been prosecuted in connection with acts of torture.

It would be helpful to learn which authority was responsible for overseeing the Internal Security Forces and the military intelligence services. With regard to paragraph 356 of the State party’s report, she wished to receive details of the punishments imposed on members of the Internal Security Forces who had been involved in wrongdoing.

Ms. Racu said that the Committee was concerned about reports of harsh conditions in detention centres and the large numbers of individuals kept in pretrial detention for long periods of time. She wished to receive details of any steps being taken to improve conditions, particularly in facilities used for pretrial detention, and of any legislative, financial and institutional measures in place to reduce the excessive use of pretrial detention. It would be interesting to learn about the extent to which non-custodial measures were applied in the State party. In the light of reports that minors were not detained separately from adults, she would welcome updated information on the situation of girls held in detention.

Mr. Zhang said that he wished to learn whether there were plans to allow prisoners to be treated by a doctor of their own choosing. While he welcomed the new laws in the State party regarding access to health care in prisons, he wondered whether the legislation was being properly implemented in practice. It would be helpful to have an account of the legislation in place regarding access to health care for individuals held in detention centres for refugees.

Mr. Heller Rouassant said that he would be grateful for information on the criteria used in selecting the representatives of the national mechanism for the prevention of torture and the national human rights commission, including the religious and professional considerations that were taken into account. He would welcome clarification of the legal framework regulating the activity of political parties and movements.

The Chair said that it would be useful to learn whether the authorities recorded the number of medical examinations that had been requested by and carried out on persons in custody and whether those records, if they did exist, had given rise to any investigations into cases of torture. He wished to hear whether overcrowding had affected the proper functioning of the mechanism to ensure that routine medical examinations were carried out when individuals first arrived at detention facilities.

He would appreciate the delegation’s comments with regard to the procedures in place to prevent the use of coerced confessions in court. It would be interesting to learn whether there had been an increase in dismissals of such confessions since the introduction of training on that issue for judges.

The Committee would be grateful for clarification of how the new physical and psychological examinations would affect the work of forensic doctors — would they have a greater degree of independence? Would a mechanism be put in place to monitor the unit responsible for the examinations?

Mr. Touzé said that he wished to learn whether the authorities intended to implement reforms to ensure that individuals held in custody had access to legal counsel for the duration of the period for which they were deprived of their liberty. He would like to hear whether the State party planned to install video recording systems to monitor places of custody and guard against ill-treatment by police officers.

He would appreciate the delegation’s comments on the measures being taken to ensure that there was no risk of violations of Convention rights in the case of Mr. Zeyad Al Dolaee, an Iraqi refugee who had been living in Syria and who was due to be extradited to Iraq following his arrest in the State party.

Mr. Hani said that he would welcome further details of the disciplinary measures used in prisons and the legal framework governing them. He wished to learn how the authorities guaranteed that international standards were met in the application of solitary confinement. The Committee would be grateful for the delegation’s comments regarding the implicit acknowledgement, contained in paragraph 341 of the State party’s report, that secret detention was used in the State party. The nature of forced labour in prisons needed clarification.

Mr. Bruni said that he would welcome clarification of paragraph 128 of the State party’s report, which appeared to indicate that incommunicado detention could be imposed at the discretion of prison wardens. He wished to learn the circumstances that could give rise to the use of incommunicado detention and the maximum permitted duration of it. It would be useful to hear how many individuals were being held in incommunicado detention and on what grounds.

The Committee would appreciate details of any form of recourse to an independent judicial authority that was available in contesting expulsion orders issued by the Directorate-General of General Security.

Ms. Gaer said that statistics would be welcome on the number of oversight inspections carried out in detention facilities and the results of those inspections. She would be interested to learn how many complaints had been submitted via the mechanisms listed in the annex to the State party’s report and how many of them had resulted in disciplinary or criminal sanctions.

Ms. Belmir said that she would appreciate clarification of the reasons for the use of full body searches of detainees. She wished to hear the delegation’s response to reports that many thousands of domestic workers, most of whom were female, experienced ill-treatment at the hands of their employers, with limited consequences for the perpetrators.

Ms. Riachi Assaker (Lebanon) said that the draft legislation on torture was still before Parliament.

Mr. Moukhaiber (Lebanon) said that 16 recommendations on torture had been incorporated into the National Human Rights Plan, which had been launched in 2005 and implemented in 2014. The judicial and security authorities were held accountable when allegations of torture were made against them. More than 300 bills relating to torture had been submitted to Parliament; the Government had prioritized 7 of them. National and international stakeholders were given the opportunity to comment on draft legislation. The bill on the criminalization of torture was expected to be adopted in due course.

The meeting rose at 1 p.m.