Women gathered in in Beirut on Thursday for a march to Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri’s residence to demand justice in the 2020 Beirut port explosion probe. (Credit: Tala Ramadan/L’Orient Today)
BEIRUT — Scores of women marched toward Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri’s Beirut residence on Thursday to call for legal immunity to be lifted from officials in the 2020 Beirut port explosion probe.
Here’s what we know:
• About 60 women were met by security forces in Beirut’s Verdun area on Thursday afternoon as they marched toward Berri’s residence in nearby Ain al-Tineh. “We are here to ask for justice, and we are here to ask for the truth for us and for our children,” Rima Abou Chacra, who was severely injured in the blast, which killed more than 200 people and wounded hundreds of thousands more, told L’Orient Today as the march kicked off.
• Judge Tarek Bitar, the lead investigator in the port explosion probe, asked Parliament to lift legal immunity, which is granted to lawmakers, from former ministers and sitting MPs Ghazi Zeaiter, Ali Hassan Khalil and Nouhad Machnouk. This would pave the way for him to question them and, possibly, initiate charges against them.
• Although Parliament said it would adjudicate the request in July, it has yet to make a determination on it, allowing the MPs to resist cooperation with Bitar’s investigation and stymieing the investigation's progress.
• Yesterday, Bitar interrogated Camille Daher, the former head of army intelligence, but former customs Director Moussa Hazimeh did not appear for his scheduled interrogation. Other top-level officials summoned by Bitar as part of the probe in recent months, including the head of General Security, Abbas Ibrahim, and State Security Director-General Tony Saliba, also failed to submit themselves for questioning.
• Back in July, during another protest by families of port blast victims in Ain al-Tineh, they were attacked by men wielding sticks. “We are here as women because the last time we came all together, many were attacked,” Elvia Saghbini, a Lebanese activist at Thursday’s march, told L’Orient Today. “”We are hoping this march would amplify our voices and demands. … We are women and thus they would respect us rather than have a violent approach.”