Timid sit-in in Beirut at Arab bankers' conference

Only a dozen participants demonstrated in front of Beirut's Phoenicia Hotel on Thursday morning to protest against Lebanese banks and their restrictions on deposits since the start of the crisis in October 2019, according to a L'Orient-Le Jour reporter present. The demonstration, called by the activist group Mouttahidoun, was organized as a conference of the Union of Arab Banks opens in the morning at the Phoenicia, in the presence of caretaker Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, among others.

"We are gathered here today because the banks' conference is taking place as if Lebanon were doing very well, as if its banks were operating normally, whereas the country is hungry, the banks are bankrupt, the economy is bankrupt, and they [those in charge] are making fun of Arabs and foreigners by saying that everything is fine," said Georgette Haddad, an activist at the protest who said she had "funds blocked in the bank," notably those of a humanitarian association for which she is responsible.

The demonstrator explained the low turnout by the fact that the call to demonstrate had not been broadcast to a large number of people, but only to certain members of the association.

"They insult us, but they also deceive themselves," said Pascal Rassi, who regularly demonstrates with Mouttahidoun. Believing that today's conference "ignores citizens and depositors," he criticized Mikati, the bank directors and the acting governor of the Central Bank, Wassim Mansouri, "who haven't held the banks to account and are still trying to manipulate the dollar." The protester further denounced "intimidation tactics" by the authorities to discourage demonstrators.

Commenting on the presence of some 50 police and military officers outside the Phoenicia, Haddad felt that the participants in the banking conference "have brought in all their bodyguards and the army because they are afraid."

This article originally appeared in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.