Le KRC, Khiam Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture, en coopération avec la Campagne internationale pour la libération de Georges Ibrahim Abdallah et avec la présence de Me Chalanset, est intervenu mardi 17 juin 2014 au Conseil des droits de l’Homme à Genève.
✬ Introduction de Mohammad Safa, secrétaire général du KRC, à la conférence internationale de Genève :
Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of the Khiam Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture in conjunction with the 26th Session of the Human Rights Council headline: the political prisoners in Europe – Georges Abdallah, 30 years in the French prisons.
Yes, today lies in European prisons hundreds of political prisoners, in France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Spain, Ireland, and the oldest prisoner held longer than the late Nelson Mandela, is the Lebanese Georges Ibrahim Abdallah.
Georges Abdallah was arrested in France in 1984 after being subjected to erroneous accusations. He was sentenced to life in prison, and despite several French court declarations for his release, pressured by the United States of America, the French authorities continuously keep Abdallah in captivity noting that the French law stipulates that after fifteen years in prison, he is entitled to be released.
Georges Abdallah is forcefully held in French prisons and the pretext for keeping him that long is that he never changed his ideas and principles, and this is the worst violations of human rights; as a matter of fact, the ever charged history of prisoners violations never witnessed injustice as to the case of Georges Abdallah.
It is the biggest scandal to human rights in Europe and particularly in France, and throughout it we open up the file of political prisoners in Europe and in the west:
Must a citizen and his family be continuously held and tortured because they dream, believe, and in solidarity with the Palestinian people and calling for justice to all oppressed nations?
Today, from the headquarters of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, we demand and call upon all those who champion human rights, and all lawyers to raise their voices louder by demanding the French government to immediately release George Ibrahim Abdallah, and apologize to him and the Lebanese people, and compensate him. We demand to penalize political arrests and release all political prisoners from European, Arab, and Israeli, and worldwide prisons.
I would like to present to you our distinguished panel. The distinguished lawyer of George Abdallah, Mr. Jean-Louis Chalanset.
His Excellency, former Lebanese minister and lawyer Dr. Issam Naaman.
The international singer, poet and human rights activist Lydia Canaan.
✬ Déclaration écrite du KRC :
Extrait :
Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, le plus vieux prisonnier politique du continent européen.
Il a passé plus de temps en prison que Nelson Mandela. Il est le plus vieux prisonnier politique du continent européen et sans doute un des plus vieux du monde. Georges Ibrahim Abdallah a été condamné le 24 octobre 1987 à la prison à vie.
Dans une déclaration faite le 23 octobre 2013 à la presse, son avocat, Me Jean-Louis Chalanset, déclare : « Aujourd’hui dans la 30ème année de sa détention, on refuse de l’expulser, seule condition à sa libération, au mépris des décisions des juges et au mépris de tous les usages concernant un étranger condamné à une peine criminelle. Il convient de souligner que jamais en France un prisonnier politique n’a été détenu aussi longtemps que Georges Ibrahim Abdallah. »
Georges Ibrahim Abdallah peut bénéficier d’une libération conditionnelle depuis 1999. Et, pourtant, alors même que le Liban s’est dit prêt à l’accueillir, il s’est vu refuser huit fois cette demande (…) Déclaration entière
✬ Le 11 juin avait eu lieu à Beyrouth une conférence de presse pour présenter cet évènement. Article en arabe.
