‘Dire situation’: Lebanese prisoners on hunger strike for 18 days

The medical condition of dozens of inmates on a hunger strike for more than two weeks inside Lebanon’s largest prison has become “dire”, according to a legal campaigner. “About 400 prisoners are on a hunger strike for more than two weeks. Ambulances enter daily to take [dozens of] them away because their condition is dire,” Mohammed Sablouh, a Lebanese lawyer, told Al Jazeera. “The prisoners are refusing medication, food and water,” Sablouh, who is also the director of the Prisoners’ Rights Center at the Tripoli Bar Association, said on Wednesday. The inmates at Roumieh prison went on a hunger strike on September 12 in protest against the suspension of a general amnesty law, which could have granted an immediate release or reduced their sentences.