BEIRUT: Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai called Thursday for a new approach to justice that treats the roots of crime and prioritizes prisoner re-socialization.
“Justice cannot be separate from equity, mercy... and humanism,” Rai said in his Maundy Thursday mass before Easter at Roumieh Prison, northeast of Beirut.
“We [should] deal with the prisoner as a human being with dignity, and not as a mere criminal.”
The patriarch, who washed and kissed the feet of 12 prisoners from Roumieh as part of a ceremony held on the last Thursday before Easter every year, said that incarceration doesn’t undermine the worth of a human.
“These are members of our society, and society must accept them,” he said, highlighting the need to focus on rehabilitation to allow prisoners to integrate back into society after serving their sentence.
The Christian figure added that dealing with the deep causes behind crime was crucial.
“Everyone should deal with the causes of the crimes in Lebanon, such as poverty, deprivation and injustice, and we shall join forces to develop our society.”
In his speech, Rai also criticized authorities for delaying the trials of many prisoners.
He called on the authorities to “provide justice services faster, especially for those who have been detained but not listened to even after months following their arrests.”
The judiciary should "speed up the trials and cease the delays that are often intentional," he said.
Around 100 Islamist prisoners have been held in Lebanon's prisons without trial for years,with many of them having been arrested following the 2007 Nahr al-Bared battle with the Army.
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