Lebanon: Ruling Aids Families of “Disappeared”

On October 23, 2009, the Juge des Référés (Judge of Summary Procedures of Beirut) issued a decision calling on the Council of Ministers' secretariat to provide the court with the unpublished full report and results of the investigations conducted by the Official Commission of Investigation into the Fate of the Abducted and Disappeared Persons in 2000. A lawyer for the families of the disappeared said the families will be able to see the report when it is handed to the court.

The groups called on the council's secretariat to comply with the order by providing copies of the report and its records to the court, and then publishing both. Until now, the government has only made public a three-page summary of the commission's work.

"Thousands of Lebanese have waited for more than a generation to find out what happened to their loved ones during the turmoil in their country. And this decision may finally allow the families to identify and seek official protection for mass graves sites," the International Center for Transitional Justice, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the International Federation for Human Rights and the Euro-Mediterranean's Federation Against Forced Disappearances said in a statement. "It paves the way for exhumations that could finally reveal the fate of missing loved ones."

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