Supporters of radical salafist sheikh Ahmad al-Assir protesting in Saida, South Lebanon on 17 March 2023. (Credit: Muntasser Abdallah)
BEIRUT — Around thirty supporters of radical Salafist sheikh Ahmad al-Assir, participated in a demonstration Friday in Saida. The demonstration started in front of the Islamic Endowments Department in the city, according to L’Orient Today’s correspondent in the South. Protesters demanded the release of the sheikh, who is serving a de facto life sentence for his role in deadly clashes in Saida's Abra neighborhood in 2013
Protesters raised pictures of Assir and held up banners calling for the release of the sheikh and his fellow detainees. Slogans read “Release Sheikh Ahmed Al-Assir and his companions” and “Stop the injustice.”
One protester gave a speech describing “the suffering of the detainees, as there is no medicine, no hospitalization, and no food” in Lebanon's prisons and called for “the closing of the Abra file and releasing all detainees.”
Assir was sentenced to death in late September 2017 for clashes in June 2013 between Islamists led by the preacher and the Lebanese Army which left 18 soldiers and 11 militiamen dead.
Lebanon has not carried out any executions since 2004.
Some of Assir's companions were sentenced to 10 years of hard labor. Last August, the military court also sentenced Assir to 20 years of hard labor for fighting against the Lebanese Army in Bhanine, Northern Lebanon, back in 2014.
The cleric was arrested on Aug. 15, 2015, at the Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut while attempting to flee the country in disguise.
Supporters of the sheikh regularly demonstrate in Saida to demand his release. A sit-in was held by the sheikh's sympathizers in mid-February in front of the Beirut Justice Palace.
Reporting contributed by Muntasser Abdallah