Georges Ibrahim Abdallah Returns To Lebanon, Welcomed As A Hero In Kobayat

Former political prisoner Georges Ibrahim Abdallah returned to Lebanon on Friday, July 25, after forty years of absence, and was welcomed as a hero in his hometown of Kobayat.

“The family home in Kobayat, Lebanon, has not been empty”

L'Humanité

The family home in Kobayat was decorated with Lebanese flags, and Abdallah was greeted at Beirut airport by hundreds of people and political leaders including the secretary-general of the Lebanese Communist Party (LCP), Hanna Gharib.

L'Humanité

At the entrance to the family home, two large photos of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah and a Lebanese flag were hung to welcome him.

In Kobayat, Abdallah stressed the need for 'Lebanon's unity,' during a welcome at the cultural center.

In Lebanon’s overcrowded women’s prisons, Nour, 25, described a daily struggle to obtain infant formula and said, "Sometimes my daughter goes three days without milk."

Nour, jailed on drug-related charges, said she shares a cramped cell with her four-month-old baby, 21 other inmates, and two other children in Baabda women’s prison.

L'Orient Today

Internal Security Forces Captain Nancy Ibrahim, the prison director, said overcrowding is the biggest problem in Lebanese prisons, where the occupancy rate stands at 323%, according to the Interior Ministry.

The Lebanese Interior Ministry appealed to donors in September, noting that prisons housing more than 8,000 inmates were overcrowded, that food was lacking there, and that there was an 'urgent need for basic medicines'.

L'Orient Today described Lebanon’s juvenile rehabilitation center for minors in conflict with the law in Warwar, Baabda, which opened just a year ago.

Inside the center, Amal, the literacy teacher, told the teenagers, "Write your names, surnames, and today’s date at the top right of your sheets," as hallway noise spilled in from an open door.

The article said two friends act as helpers between staff and students, and that they are considered "trustworthy," so they are given small responsibilities.

It also described the center’s atmosphere as feeling like a school, with concrete walls high enough to still catch a glimpse of the distant sea, while the teenager hangs his laundry at the window of his cell.