The president of the union of Banque du Liban employees Abbas Awada in the inner courtyard of the BDL, in Beirut, on June 28, 2022. (Credit: Philippe Hage Boutros/L'Orient-Le Jour)
BEIRUT — Employees for Banque du Liban held a rally inside BDL headquarters on Tuesday as part of their strike to protest against the lawsuits and charges against the central bank and its staff.
Here’s what we know:
• "This new strike is taking place because of the attack on our dignity, which we will not accept," the head of BDL Employees’ Union said during the rally. He also criticized the fact that "employees [of BDL] are summoned to an investigation carried out as if they were criminals.” The union estimates that the number of BDL employees on strike are around 800 employees, which represents almost all of the staff apart from some employees in charge of daily technical maintenance.
• This one-day mobilization aims to protest against the "legal proceedings and accusations" against the central bank and its staff, the union said yesterday.
• Four former vice presidents of BDL, the former Director of the Finance Ministry, Alain Bifani, as well as other employees of the central bank and the auditing firm Deloitte, which had audited the central bank in 2018, were targeted by new measures from Mount Lebanon Prosecutor Judge Ghada Aoun. Last Wednesday, the magistrate accompanied a State Security patrol in a search of the governor's villa in Rabieh in which he was not found.