Activists gather in downtown Beirut on July 24, 2018, to protest against a wave of interrogations of people making political comments on social media. (Credit: AFP)
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A hearing was held yesterday in the investigation of the June death of 5-year-old Lynn Taleb following repeated sexual assault. Presiding Judge Samantha Nassar will question Taleb’s mother, uncle and maternal grandparents. Taleb was found to be suffering from internal bleeding eight days into a stay with her mother at her grandfather's house in Minyeh, northern Lebanon. Two separate forensic reports confirmed that the young girl had been raped several times before her death. Taleb’s mother and maternal grandmother are accused of withholding information and delaying her hospitalization, and her uncle and maternal grandfather are accused of sexual assault of a child.
Amnesty International launched a campaign calling for legal reforms to abolish Lebanese law articles that “criminalize insults” and replace them with “new civil provisions.” “Such reforms would balance the protection of people’s reputations from undue harm while ensuring the protection of the right to freedom of expression,” said Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, Aya Majzoub. In its announcement of the “#MyOpinionIsNotaCrime” campaign, Amnesty said, “Lebanese authorities must immediately halt all prosecutions of journalists, human rights defenders, activists, and others who are critical of state officials.” The NGO claimed high-ranking Lebanese officials increasingly used “repressive criminal provisions” against their critics and documented an “increase in freedom of expression-related investigations and prosecutions” since October 2019. Last month, Lebanese journalist Dima Sadek was sentenced to a year in prison over allegedly defamatory comments regarding the Free Patriotic Movement. In March, State Security summoned journalist and co-founder of the independent online media platform Megaphone Jean Kassir “without informing him of the reason for the summons” — later revealed to be a defamation case brought against him by Lebanon’s top prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat. The same month, editor-in-chief of the Public Source, Lara Bitar, was summoned by the Internal Security Forces Cybercrimes Bureau over defamation charges linked to an article alleging that the Lebanese Forces committed environmental crimes during and after the 1975-90 Lebanese Civil War.
Data released by the Internal Security Forces (ISF) yesterday showed a 38 percent drop in reported crime during the first seven months of 2023, compared to the same period last year. An ISF source told L’Orient Today the figures can be attributed to a ramped-up policing strategy devised in 2021, implemented despite “difficult security circumstances” and an influx of visitors to Lebanon. “The security institution’s readiness and ability to provide its security services has improved compared to pre-crisis years,” the same source added. Earlier this year, a lawyer linked a lower crime rate reported by the ISF to a decline in public trust for security institutions and a reluctance to report crimes.
Gunfire from an escalated “personal dispute” killed one person and injured several others near Wadi al-Zayneh on the outskirts of Sebline, Mount Lebanon, a Hezbollah spokesperson told L’Orient Today. The same source claimed that the victim is from the Kanaan family and his son, Hussein Bilal Kanaan, is among the injured. A security source identified the shooters as Ali Kamal al-Din and Bilal Abbas Kanaan, claiming their armed clash was instigated by “an exchange of looks.” Armed clashes have repeatedly led to fatal injuries — for those involved and bystanders alike — amid a rampant presence of unregulated firearms in Lebanon.
Civil Defense units extinguished a fire at the Alfa transmission station in al-Marah, Hermel that injured two people and interrupted broadcast services in the area, a security source confirmed to L’Orient Today. Security sources told L’Orient Today that the fire was caused by an electrical malfunction that was aggravated by high temperatures near the fuel oil tank on the building’s roof. Last month, Beirut Governor Marwan Abboud issued a series of measures to mitigate the heightened fire risk caused by rising temperatures after wildfires charred swathes of Akkar forestland and a generator malfunction blaze erupted in the capital’s Zoqaq al-Blat neighborhood. On Monday, Civil Defense members continued their attempts to extinguish a fire that broke out last Tuesday in a textile warehouse in Beirut’s southern suburbs, leading to the death of one firefighter and the injury of at least 12 others.
In case you missed it, here’s our must-read story from yesterday: “Amin Salam: The setbacks facing the ‘great Sunni hope’”
Compiled by Abbas Mahfouz
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