Protest in solidarity with photojournalist Hassan Chaaban Sept. 2, 2022. (Credit: Mohammed Yassin/L'Orient Today)
Want to get the Morning Brief by email? Click here to sign up.
“The solution lies in raising salaries,” a teachers’ union spokesperson told L’Orient Today as teachers protested demanding a pay raise, echoing employees in other sectors’ requests, while striking judges proposed a two-month truce for wages paid at the central bank’s Sayrafa platform’s lira to dollar exchange rate. Public school teachers demanded overdue salaries and a wage increase through sit-ins on Friday in the South, Mount Lebanon and Baalbeck as well as at the Finance Ministry in Beirut, whose minister was accused of neglecting their demands. In a tweet, President Michel Aoun deemed “education a sacred right,” while some public schools, facing teacher absences and lackluster budgets, struggled to meet half the 104 teaching day minimum set by caretaker Education Minister Abbas Halabi. The educators’ protest follows the first week of an open-ended strike held by state telecom provider Ogero employees to demand better pay — a “righteous demand,” according to company head Imad Kreidieh who, nonetheless, disavowed the work stoppage. Last Thursday, caretaker Telecommunications Minister Johnny Corm said no solution to the telecom workers’ protest could be reached before this week while service outages were repeatedly noted across Lebanon.
The relatives of the Aug. 4 Beirut port blast victims held their 25th monthly vigil commemorating the blast yesterday while the investigation is in limbo pending judicial assignments and rulings on complaints against lead investigator Judge Tarek Bitar. A few dozen demonstrators demanded justice for the more than 220 victims killed in the tragedy, as well as for the 6,500 people injured. The northern block of the port silos completely collapsed on Aug. 23 after fires raging continuously since early July felled portions of the structure. After MPs and former Minister Ali Hassan Khalil and Ghazi Zeaiter attempted to depose Bitar from the investigation, their complaints have not only paused the probe but are themselves frozen pending the appointment of six chamber presidents to the Court of Cassation. As Lebanon’s judicial proceedings are halted, families of those detained in alleged connections with the Aug. 4, 2020, Beirut port blast held a sit-in Friday at the house of the President of the Supreme Judicial Council, Judge Suhail Abboud, protesting their relatives’ captivity, who have so far been held without trial. Regarding overcrowding in prisons, caretaker Interior Minister Bassem Mawlawi claimed that “79.1 percent of detainees are awaiting trial” and called on judges to expedite court decisions.
Tripoli MP Ashraf Rifi appealed to Italy, “a friend of Lebanon” and to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Lebanese Embassy in Rome to rescue 70 Lebanese migrants stuck aboard a broken down boat off the Maltese and Italian coasts. The migrants’ relatives claimed, according to L’Orient Today’s correspondent, that children and pregnant women were aboard the vessel with food and water stocks having been depleted. The migrants’ families have attempted to contact Lebanese authorities for assistance. Rifi was prominent in the recent submarine search operation attempting to locate the remains of people who were aboard a migrant boat that sank after it capsized following an encounter with the Lebanese Army in April. As Lebanon faces the second year of an economic crisis marked by currency depreciation and resource shortages, reports of attempted irregular migration proliferate.
Several banks will reportedly lower withdrawal limits allowed by Banque du Liban’s Circular 161, according to several local media outlets and confirmed by two banking sources to L’Orient Today. Circular 161, was issued in December and is active until the end of September, allowing banks to sell unlimited cash dollars to their customers by converting the amount into lira at BDL’s Sayrafa platform exchange rate. The Sayrafa rate as of Friday stood at LL27,600, while the parallel black market rate stands at LL34,400 to the dollar as of yesterday evening.
The Alternative Press Syndicate organized a sit-in at the Interior Ministry in Beirut in solidarity with photojournalist Hasan Shaaban, the target of attempted arson following a series of threats by individuals believed to be supporters of Hezbollah. As long as they are abiding by the law, journalists “should be able to say whatever they want,” Opposition MP Halimé el-Kaakour told L’Orient Today, claiming that citizens and journalists speaking up can contribute to solving the country’s problems. "I found a cardboard box near the rear tire with a bottle of gasoline inside and two small batteries connected," Shaaban said last Thursday, describing what he claimed was attempted arson. “Leave this village. Collaborator. Dog,” unknown assailants told Shaaban in a note appended on Aug. 14 to a slashed tire on his car, 10 days after he found a bullet on the vehicle’s window. The threats are believed to be responses to Shaaban’s reports on inhabitants of Beit Yahoun’s distress facing water shortages. However, the reports were described as objective to L’Orient Today by Jad Shahrour, a communication officer at the Samir Kassir Foundation. Journalist Dima Sadek had faced an online hate campaign, which she described as including an “incitement to murder [her],” in response to her stances on Hezbollah. On the one-year anniversary of the assassination of Hezbollah critic Lokman Slim, Human Rights Watch found gross negligence and procedural violations in the investigations of his murder.
Leader of the Lebanese Forces Samir Geagea called on “all opposition groups” to elect a “rescue president that will pull Lebanon from the pits of hell and lead the country towards recovery.” During the 32nd mass for Lebanese Forces members who were killed during Lebanon’s 15-year civil war, Geagea did not announce himself as a presidential candidate, and instead, said it “is our responsibility to elect a president … We need to elect a rescue president.” “We are ready to sacrifice everything, on the condition that the opposition parties agree on one rescue candidate for the election. If we do not take this path, we would be betraying the population’s trust in us,” he added.
President Michel Aoun saluted a fleet organized by a civil campaign to preserve marine wealth which sailed towards Naqoura, close to the Lebanese border with Israel, yesterday to express the "right of the Lebanese to water and offshore gas wealth.” The boats set out from the port of Tripoli in the north, and Saida and Sour in the south, under the slogan “Lebanon's oil is for Lebanon,” L’Orient Today’s correspondents reported. The maritime convoy follows months of indirect negotiations between Lebanon and Israel after the latter’s deployment of a floating production ship to the Karish gas field on June 5 caused tensions to flare. A White House official had said to L’Orient Today they believe “a lasting compromise” is possible. Deputy Parliament Speaker Elias Bou Saab announced a US mediator in the indirect negotiations Amos Hochstein would visit at the end of next week. The diplomat’s last visit was on Aug. 1, during which he expressed optimism regarding the dispute. On Sunday, an Israeli army spokesperson announced military exercises would be conducted at the border with Lebanon, which would include the “movement of military vehicles and [sounds of] explosions.” Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah had warned that his party would go to a “fight” if Israel encroached on Lebanon’s maritime resources.
In case you missed it, here’s our must-read story from over the weekend: “Tamara Saade’s 'Tiers of Trauma' exhibition turns heads at the 'Visa pour l’image' festival in France.”