BEIRUT: Families of Roumieh prisoners staged a demonstration Wednesday in Downtown Beirut to demand more rights for inmates as Parliament meets to discuss a proposal to build extra prison facilities.

About a hundred demonstrators gathered at Riad Solh Square in the early afternoon to protest against Parliament’s decision last week not to reduce the length of the “prison year” from 12 to nine months.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said Wednesday the Administrative and Justice Committee was seeking to readdress the issue.

The demonstration comes less than a week after an inmate died at Roumieh from self immolation.

Conditions at Roumieh came to the fore in April when inmates rioted over poor conditions and lack of reforms. In May, some 200 prisoners went on hunger strike at the maximum security prison in response to poor conditions, including lack of medical care and sleeping space.

A host of reforms were offered following the crackdown in an attempt to restore order in the prison, with the Interior Ministry pledging to speed up the trial process and the ISF delivering water tanks and 4,000 mattresses to the prison, which was originally designed with a capacity of little more than 1,000 but now houses some 3,700 inmates.