BEIRUT: With the second anniversary of the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanese territories to be marked this weekend, the Free Patriotic Movement’s (FPM) youth club at the American University of Beirut (AUB), in collaboration with detainee advocacy group SOLIDE, hosted a conference on Wednesday calling for attention to the plight of Lebanese detainees in Syrian prisons. "We consider the withdrawal of Syria from Lebanon to be incomplete if our compatriots are still being held over there," Bassam Karam, vice president of the youth club, told The Daily Star. "The message from today is that we will continue to press forward with this, and we want the United Nations to extend its mandate on the Hariri investigation to include an investigation into the detained in Syria."
The club circulated a petition prior to the conference calling for such an expansion to the role of the UN commission investigating the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Attending the conference was FPM MP Gibran Bassil, SOLIDE founder and activist Ghazi Aad, FPM youth club members and some of the parents of inmates held in Syria. Karam questioned the priorities of the international community. "Why do the assassination of a high-ranking official and the assassination attempt of another official deserve an international investigation, while a crime committed every day by Syrian authorities against the families of the detainees and their children does not deserve an international investigation committee? Are the missing second-class citizens?" he said.
By Nadim Ladki, BEIRUT, April 26 (Reuters) – Lebanese police on Thursday found the bodies of a Sunni Muslim government supporter and a 12-year-old boy whose abduction earlier this week was linked to Lebanon’s rising sectarian tension. The bodies of Ziad Qabalan, 25, and Ziad Ghandour, 12, were found in a field north of the port city of Sidon, 40 km (25 miles) south of Beirut, after a local television station received an anonymous phone tip, police sources said. 
