BEIRUT: Lebanon’s parliament commenced a legislative session on Wednesday to discuss and vote on several bills, including an amnesty law that could cover swathes of prisoners.
More than 40 draft laws will be discussed and voted on in the two-day session, the most prominent being the abolition of the death penalty, which has not been carried out in years, and the amnesty.
For years, parliament has been trying to pass a general amnesty bill, whose primary goal is to reduce overcrowding in Lebanon’s prisons, without gaining consensus due to sectarian and political divisions regarding who would benefit from it.
Amnesty has been a demand for families of Islamist prisoners, some of them accused of attacking the Lebanese army, participating in clashes in northern Sunni-majority Tripoli and planning bombings.
Thousands of families from the eastern Baalbek and Hermel regions, bastions of the Shiite movement Hezbollah and its ally Amal where illicit cannabis cultivation is widespread, have also been demanding amnesty for drug-related offenses and theft.
