To the Honourable Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament:

The petition of certain citizens of Australia draws the following issues to the attention of the House:

• That political prisoners in Lebanon who stand for democracy, have wrongly been convicted and sentenced to indefinite periods of solitary imprisonment in barbarous conditions.
• Amnesty International has monitored this situation and has strongly campaigned for the release of all political prisoners and have also criticised the occurrence of torture and incarceration as a result of Syrian occupation in Lebanon.
• With foreign intervention and presence there is the absence of self-government and ability to engage in democratic discussions that existed freely prior the civil war.
• Lebanon does not have an independent parliamentary government.

We therefore pray that the House joins the Australian Lebanese and Amnesty International in taking urgent steps in opposing the imprisonment of political prisoners and to oppose foreign involvement in Lebanon so that all Lebanese can enjoy democratic freedom.