BEIRUT — Internal Security Forces retirees denounced on Friday deteriorating living conditions and demanded the state supply them with fuel in the face of Lebanon’s ongoing economic crisis.
Here’s what we know:
• At a press conference Friday, the retirees spoke about the challenges they face in securing health care and medications. Amid the country’s economic crisis, state subsidies on thousands of medications were fully or partially removed last week.
• The retirees called for assistance in obtaining diesel, the price of which rose dramatically when subsidies on the commodity ended and continue to skyrocket as the lira depreciates. They then called on the director general of the ISF, Gen. Imad Osman, to “ensure their legal rights.”
• The retired police officers also lamented the banking restrictions, in place since the onset of the economic crisis in 2019, that limit their access to their deposits.
• Retired ISF members regularly demonstrate in front of Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi’s house in Tripoli to denounce deteriorating living conditions and the erosion of their purchasing power as the national currency depreciates. The Lebanese lira hit a new record low Thursday, trading at LL25,000 to the US dollar.