The largest prison in Lebanon Among the most prominent punitive facilities in the country. Over the years it turned into a front of a humanitarian crisis, after it was necessary by riots, rebellion and leaks of video scenes documenting torture and misuse of prisoners, which made him lead the headlines and float his news on the surface of the media and human rights scene from time to time.
In the eyes of human rights bodies, prison represents a model of chaos and the absence of reformist vision, amid overcrowding that exceeds the capacity with twice, dilapidated infrastructure, inhumane detention conditions, and repeated security incidents that raise political and social controversy over the harsh conditions that thousands of prisoners suffer, most of them detainees without trial.
The site and the area
The prison is located in the Romans district of Al -Matn, east of the capital BeirutAnd built on an area of about 1.15 square kilometers, over a hill overlooking the Lebanese coast.
Construction
The Lebanese government authorities established a Roman prison in the late 1960s, as part of a plan to modernize the prisons infrastructure, and officially opened in 1970.
The prison was built according to the criteria that were then modern, in the form of a complex of separate buildings, each of which is dedicated to a specific group of prisoners, and includes administrative, medical and dormitories (collective bedrooms specialized to accommodate a number of prisoners in one room or a common space), but the design was not flexible enough to accommodate security and demographic transformations later.
Capacity
Roumieh prison was designed to accommodate 1500 prisoners, according to conditions that respect the basic health standards, but the actual numbers of inmates exceeded this number by more than 3 times in different periods, as the number of prisoners in 2008 exceeded the threshold of 5500 inmates, causing severe overcrowding and the creation of humanitarian, health and security crises.
This overcrowding is mainly linked to the crisis of delay in trials, as statistics show that a large percentage of inmates are reserved, and they have not yet been tried (the reserve prison), in light of the lack of judicial cadres, the slow procedures, and the failure to activate the court system inside the prison.
Oracious walames
The prison consists of major buildings several Distributed according to the categories of prisoners, most notably:
- Building A: The guests who are sentenced to various criminal charges include their trial and have fulfilled all the stages of the trial.
- Building B: The Islamic detainees and detainees were allocated on terrorism -related charges, and they were arrested as a reserve pending their trial, but some of them spent nearly 20 years in prison.
- Events Building: A separate building from other buildings that includes minor detainees on various charges.
- Women’s Building: A separate building from men’s prison and includes detainees from women.
- Special court: It was established inside the prison in the “Building B” in 2013, with the aim of reducing the movement of transport outside the prison and securing the trial inside the walls, but it remained without use since its construction.
- “Blue” building: He was associated with the condition of guests with mental and mental illnesses and bearers AIDS virusIt consists of two floors containing 14 rooms for psychiatric patients and 3 rooms for AIDS patients.
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These buildings include rooms with modest capacity, but they harbor twice their normal number, as cells accumulate more than 3 or 4 times their original capacity, and prisoners often have to rotate to sleep due to narrow spaces.
The prison buildings also lack adequate health facilities, as the toilets are exposed in the rooms, in addition to the absence of ventilation, power outages and lack of hot water.
As for the dispensary inside the prison, there are no necessary equipment to perform his job, which makes him out of service most of the time.
With regard to internal security, a surveillance system was adopted in the cameras in 2016, when the prison administration placed about 139 surveillance cameras, covering buildings and squares, connected to a control room working around the clock, but prisoners were able to sabotage them on more than one occasion during the rebellion to prevent events from documenting.
Management and supervision
The prison is run according to an organization dating back to an old legislative decree issued in 1949 (Decree 14310), stating that “the prison administration belongs to the Ministry of Justice, to be temporarily entrusted to the Ministry of Interior until the establishment of an independent reform institution.” But this “temporary situation” turned into a permanent situation, as the independent institution was not established, which made the administration of Roman prison legally in a gray area between the two ministries, which reflected negatively on the administrative and legal reality inside the prison.
The Internal Security Forces, specifically the prison department, takes over the administration and supervision of security and organizational, in the absence of a device specialized in reform justice or rehabilitation. International law For human rights– That the prison administration takes over a specialized civil or judicial authority, not purely security.
Some successive governments have tried, especially a government Naguib Mikati (2011-2013), pushing towards the establishment of an independent directorate of prisons under the supervision of the Ministry of Justice, but the project was not completed due to the fall of the government and the cessation of financing, which kept the prison outside the proper institutional framework, regarding legal dependency and what is related to the application of accounting standards, control and social rehabilitation.
The impact of the legal status on the rights of prisoners
The ambiguity in the legal status of the prison administration was reflected directly on the rights of inmates. In the absence of a civilian authority specialized in management and rehabilitation, the prevailing approach remains in dealing with the prisoners, pure security, which often leads to violating legal guarantees and basic human rights, as well as the application of reform policies or professional and psychological rehabilitation programs, the scene is dominated by forced discipline, overcrowding and the absence of adequate health care.
The delay in trials – especially for the Islamic detainees – is considered one of the most prominent problems, as some of them stay for years without the issuance of rulings, in a clear violation of the principle of “fair trial within a reasonable deadline” as stipulated in Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The multiplicity of regulatory authorities, and the conflict of powers between the ministries of Justice and Interior also leads to weakening the accounting mechanisms and prevents the seizure of torture and ill -treatment, which was documented by international and local human rights organizations repeatedly.
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Guests with different charges
Roumieh prison includes a wide range of prisoners of various nationalities and affiliations, and their number is estimated according to the estimates of human rights bodies by more than 4 thousand prisoners until May 2025, although the institutional capacity of the institution does not exceed 1500 inmates.
In prison, who are convicted of criminal and civil crimes, in addition to detainees with sensitive security files, especially those called “Islamic prisoners”, who are arrested on charges related to terrorism and belonging to extremist groups, or for their association with security operations, and their number is estimated in hundreds in the absence of official statistics, most of whom were imprisoned in prison after the events of Nahr Al -Bard camp in general 2007.
It also includes foreign prisoners, most of whom are Syrians, who are in prison without trials on various charges, most notably their support for the Syrian revolution.
Requests to restore the Syrian detainees
The campaigns demanding the release of the Syrian detainees escalated, especially after the fall of a regime Bashar al -Assad The end of 2024, the most prominent of which is a campaign entitled: “Save the Syrian detainees in Lebanon”, which was led by Syrian and Lebanese journalists and activists in the field of human rights, and aims to pressure the Lebanese government and the new Syrian leadership to move seriously in this file.
Many of these detainees, who were arrested due to their supportive positions suffer For the Syrian revolutionFrom difficult health and psychological conditions, some have spent more than 9 years without trial.
In January 2025, a meeting was announced in Damascus between a president Syria Ahmed Al -Shara The then head of the Lebanese caretaker government, Naguib Mikati- is an agreement to return 1750 Syrian prisoners from Lebanon to Syria.
It is estimated that there are more than 2350 Syrian detainees in Lebanese prisons, the majority of whom are in Roumieh prison, and they are held on various backgrounds, most notably participating in protests against the former Syrian regime or engaging in opposition activities.
It was a report Amnesty International It has indicated that the Lebanese security forces have truly practiced hundreds of Syrians, men, and children, patterns of arbitrary detention, torture and unfair trials.
A number of Syrian detainees have previously fought a hunger strike, in an attempt to pressure the new Syrian authorities in order to restore them, while confirming Damascus It follows the file in coordination with the Lebanese side.
Promise events and facts inside the prison
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Public Entrepreneurship 2008
In April 2008, the prison witnessed a major rebellion, in protest against the conditions of detention, abuse and delay in trials, during which the prisoners managed to sabotage some facilities and burn parts of the building, which led to widespread security intervention.
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The escape of “Fatah al -Islam” prisoners in 2012
On November 13, 2012, 3 prisoners belonging to the organization.Open Islam“From fleeing outside the prison walls, taking advantage of security gaps inside the building” B “.
The incident caused a shock in the Lebanese security circles, and suspicions were raised about internal complicity or a serious negligence in the observation, before the fleeing was later arrested, in a security operation followed by measures to tighten control inside the prison.
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An alleged “terrorist operating room” inside the prison
At a press conference held on January 17, 2015, the Lebanese Interior Minister announced at the time Nihad Al -MachnoukThe security forces revealed the presence of an operating room inside the prison that communicate with external organizations that have a relationship By ISIS in Tenderness AndMosulAnd elements related to camps such as Sweet Eye AndArsal town.
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Nissan 2015
“Islamists” prisoners declared disobedience, and they detained doctors and security personnel inside the building “B”, and the security forces subsequently intervened and the rebel group transferred to another building.
After the operation, a video tape leaked showing the torture of some prisoners at the hands of security personnel, which sparked a wave of denunciation from several human rights organizations, most notably organized. Human Rights Watch.
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The leaked video crisis and torture 2015
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In June 2015, a video showing physical attacks on detainees inside the prison spread, prompting the Lebanese authorities to open an investigation regarding the descending, but human rights workers questioned the effectiveness of official procedures, and considered that “torture in Romans is systematically and not an accidental matter.”
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Suicide cases
With the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century, the prison witnessed a disturbing increase in suicide cases between the inmates, as deaths from time to time are registered in the cells, in a phenomenon that is attributed, according to human rights bodies, to the deterioration of the shelter conditions inside the prison and the weak medical and psychological services.
Human rights organizations, such as “Human Rights Watch” and “and”Amputation International “, that the harsh conditions in prison, especially for Syrian prisoners and detained individuals without trial, pushes many of them to commit suicide to get rid of the daily suffering that they come under their head.