Advocates and human rights groups gather to discuss accountability for the Beirut Blast, two years on

BEIRUT — To highlight the domestic and international efforts to seek accountability for the Beirut blast two years on, Human Rights Watch and other groups held a webinar Wednesday to discuss with journalists, researchers, and policy makers the steps that have been taken.

Here’s what we know:

    • Human Rights Watch, Accountability Now, Daraj Media, the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP) and the Project on Middle East Democracy held a webinar the day before the two-year anniversary of the Beirut port explosion on Aug. 4, 2020. 

    • Alia Ibrahim co-founder of Daraj Media stated that investigative journalism is one of the key ways to move forward with the port investigation. “The mafia running in the country, and the one responsible for the blast has us as hostages in every detail of our lives. We founded Daraj to hold those in power accountable. We need to document what is happening in Lebanon, and to present our documents when the investigation starts again, whether it is an international or a domestic investigation.”

    • Zena Wakim, an international lawyer and Swiss attorney, stated that relatives of the victims of the Beirut port explosion filed a complaint in Texas with the support of the Swiss foundation, Accountability Now, after the domestic investigation headed by Judge Tarek Bitar was repeatedly halted.

    • Tania Daou-Alam, who is an attorney and whose husband, Jean-Frederic Alam, was a victim of the explosion, stated that the state is manipulating the situation by trying “to distract people from the investigation. The Lebanese are now busy tending to their daily needs, that it is difficult for them to only focus on pressuring the state to hold the investigation, because their daily life has become very difficult.”

    • Aya Majzoub, Lebanon and Bahrain researcher in the Middle East and North Africa Division from HRW stated that “only one judge is leading the investigation, and he's being asked single-handedly to look into one of the biggest crimes — so we had to reach out to the international community for help. We need an international investigation, because the domestic one has been halted for more than one year.”

    • Majzoub stated that more than 150 survivors of the blast, civil society groups, and international human rights groups have signed a petition calling for an international investigation to take place, and will be submitted to the Human Rights Council in September.