Hunger strike enters third week as Lebanon's largest prison reels under overcrowding crisis

Dozens of inmates at Roumieh prison, Lebanon's largest correctional facility, have seen their health deteriorate sharply after spending more than two and a half weeks refusing food, water and medication in a collective hunger strike that rights campaigners have described as a dire emergency. Mohammed Sablouh, a Lebanese lawyer who directs the Prisoners' Rights Center at the Tripoli Bar Association, said the roughly 400 prisoners taking part are now in such poor condition that ambulances arrive at the prison every day to carry away dozens of them for treatment.

Speaking to Al Jazeera on Wednesday, Sablouh said the medical emergency inside the facility has reached a critical stage. "About 400 prisoners are on a hunger strike for more than two weeks," he said, adding that the daily ambulance transfers show how far the health of the protesters has declined. The striking detainees, according to him, are not only refusing meals but have also rejected water and any prescribed medical treatment, a choice that medical staff warn greatly accelerates the onset of organ failure in prolonged fasting.

The protest action began on September 12, when inmates at Roumieh stopped eating in response to the suspension of a general amnesty law that had offered them the possibility of immediate release or a reduction in the length of their sentences. The law, approved on August 12, was intended in part to ease the chronic overcrowding that has become a defining feature of Lebanon's prison system, and it included provisions to free those incarcerated for minor offences.

The strike has been accompanied by demonstrations in Tripoli, Lebanon's second largest city, where protesters have also protested the suspension of the law. Sablouh warned that the broader penal system cannot absorb any further shock, and in particular cannot withstand the reversal of the amnesty measure, describing the overall state of the country's prisons as tragic.

A significant share of those on hunger strike are detainees whose arrests stemmed from their support for the Syrian uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, who was toppled in December 2024 following more than a decade of brutal conflict. Their cases have become a focal point of concern among rights defenders, who say political prisoners from the earlier decade of unrest remain jailed long after the political context that produced their prosecution has shifted.

The Free Patriotic Movement, one of Lebanon's largest political parties, has filed an appeal with the Constitutional Council arguing that some of the inmates on strike face charges that could be characterised as terrorism. The Constitutional Council is expected to deliver its ruling next month, a decision that rights campaigners hope could reopen the question of the suspended amnesty law and the status of those held at Roumieh.

Behind the hunger strike lies a prison system widely regarded as being in chronic crisis. Lebanese prisons are notorious for severe overcrowding, and thousands of inmates spend years behind bars without ever being tried. The current prison population stands at approximately 8,500, close to double the total capacity of the country's facilities, a situation the amnesty law was designed to address.

Sablouh put the scale of the overcrowding in stark terms, saying that prison overcrowding in Lebanon exceeds 330 percent of the facilities' actual capacity. With the population already nearly twice the limit, any new influx of detainees — or any continuation of the long detention of those awaiting trial — risks pushing the system past breaking point.

The human cost of the crisis has already been heavy. More than 40 prisoners died in 2025, according to Sablouh, who said some died as a result of medical neglect, others under torture, and others by suicide after prolonged trials and repeated postponements that left them without resolution or recourse.

The lawyer attributed the bloated inmate population in large part to persistent judicial delays, noting that many of those held were arrested for petty offences and simply never released. He criticised the failure of the judiciary to enforce Article 108 of Lebanon's Code of Criminal Procedure, which sets clear limits on pre-trial detention: two months for misdemeanours, renewable once for an equal period, and six months for felonies, renewable for an equal period up to a maximum of one year.

Until those limits are respected, rights campaigners say, the hunger strike at Roumieh is likely to continue — and the ambulance visits to the prison are likely to grow more frequent. The outcome of the Constitutional Council appeal, expected next month, will determine whether the suspended amnesty law is reinstated and whether the roughly 400 prisoners who have refused to eat for 18 days see any meaningful change in their status.