'Welcome to Lebanon' billboard at the Beirut Rafik Hariri Airport arrivals terminal. (Credit: João Sousa/L'Orient Today/File photo)
The names in this article have been changed to protect the identities of the subjects.
BEIRUT — Sitting in a back room at the Beirut airport, Ingrid could hear the security personnel next door talking about her. She doesn’t understand Arabic, but she could understand the words “Ingrid,” “Israel,” and “Mossad.”
The Danish woman in her late twenties, traveling alone, was detained at passport control last weekend when she tried to enter Lebanon — her fourth visit — on a tourist visa. Fifty-one hours later, she was put on an airplane headed back to Copenhagen, having been told, simply, that she had “no reason” for being in the country.
“I came because my Lebanese friends” — who she describes as her chosen family — “have only Lebanese passports, so it's easier for me to go to them,” she says. Sure, there’s a war in the country, but Ingrid says she’s not afraid. “They mean a lot to me.”
Over the two days she spent in that airport back room, she met a Swedish man, two American Christian missionaries, a Cypriot businessman, two Dutch Iranians who wanted to “help the displaced,” and a German Iraqi who worked for a soccer league — all of whom were denied entry to the country.
Ingrid described to L’Orient Today how the rejected passengers took turns trying to sleep on the only available sofa despite the persistent noise of a sleepless airport; how she went a whole day without food and, on the second day, was finally escorted to the cafeteria for a meal; and the interrogations that went around in circles with officers that seemed most interested in bolstering their own narrative: whatever her reasons were for coming to Lebanon, they weren’t sufficient enough to absolve her of being a potential spy.
Order from the directorate
L’Orient Today spoke to and heard reports of dozens of people turned away in recent weeks, including around 10 NGO workers from various organizations, two journalists who received entry bans and were deported, two people who were refused for not having “sufficient grounds to enter the country,” and three passengers from Germany, Spain and the U.S. who were told this past weekend that foreigners can’t enter unless they have a work permit.
According to Ingrid, through her phone, an employee of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs spoke with airport staff who told them that a new law had been implemented restricting entry. When contacted, the ministry said it could not comment on individual cases, saying immigration policies and their implementation should be clarified with the Lebanese authorities. The Danish Embassy said the same, referring L’Orient Today to the ministry.
“There has not been a change in the law regarding the entry of foreigners into Lebanon,” a source at General Security told L’Orient Today. A common concern for passport control is people entering the country on a tourist visa with the intention to work, and evading taxes. “However, due to the security situation in Lebanon, General Security is being more vigilant about who is entering and leaving the country and some people are not permitted entry due to security reasons,” though those reasons were not specified.
A General Security spokesperson said the order came from the Directorate roughly one month ago and that it applies across the board but is focused on the airport. In the last two months, Hezbollah, currently at war with Israel, has suffered a number of profound security breaches, one of which led to the assassination of its leader Hassan Nasrallah. In the two weeks following the escalation into full-out war, starting on Sept. 23, several people were arrested under suspicion of espionage, including a journalist who entered Lebanon on a British passport only to be discovered with an Israeli passport after residents of Beirut’s southern suburbs alerted the authorities to his presence.
“One person making a mistake will affect the others sometimes,” the spokesperson said. “No one [at border control] wants to be labeled as the person who let someone into the country who shouldn’t have been allowed.”
A former minister familiar with security and law issues said, under condition of anonymity, that, like any other country, Lebanon’s homeland security can turn people away at the border if they’re deemed a security risk and, according to a 1962 law, it doesn’t need to provide the reasons. He claims that General Security is “trying to be flexible” and is “not rejecting people systematically.”
“But right now, they’re asking, ‘Why would a foreigner come to Lebanon while we are under fire?’”
Still, tourists, in principle, “should be welcomed,” the former minister said. If someone is turned away, their embassy has the right to inquire with the Ministry of Interior, which can then open the case with General Security. At this point, the details of the rejection would be shared, but only with the ministry.
A diplomatic source said that while reports of rejections have been circulating, no official change in policy has been shared with embassies and unless an individual made a specific request, or until the issue escalates to include higher numbers of a specific nationality, their embassy wouldn’t be getting involved. “Lebanese authorities retain the right to say who is welcome and who is not,” the source said.
'Come back after the war'
"The problem is that there is no clear law in this situation to manage these particular questions," a lawyer told L’Orient Today. Two other lawyers concurred, and all three said, in so many words, that once General Security makes its decision, nothing can be done.
When asked about whether it applies to renewals, the spokesperson said the background checks are more thorough and therefore take more time. For tourist visas, certain nationals are required to apply — meeting specific requirements — before flying to Lebanon. Citizens from many countries, such as France, Canada or the U.S., can apply upon arrival for a one-month tourist visa and the chance to extend to 90 days. Residents of the Gulf can receive a six-month visa, extendable to a year.
Foreign journalists looking to cover the war in Lebanon often come in on tourist visas. Four such journalists told L’Orient Today that they had managed to enter the country this way, showing their press cards, without much hassle. Most reported there being more security officers involved than usual and more copies made of their documents, but otherwise smooth procedures.
One freelance journalist, who missed his visa’s expiry date by one day, was told at the visa services office that he should leave the country and re-enter with a new one. After three days away, he showed up again at the airport, but, without a press card, he was taken aside and told to “come back after the war.”
In mid-October, two journalists from north-western Europe were hit with an entry ban, the duration of which wasn’t made clear to them, and sent back home after a 10-hour stint in a back room of the airport. Carl and Alvin run an independent media company that is explicitly pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist, one of the duo told L’Orient Today.
The two had initially been approved for entry, but after receiving the stamp, a plain-clothed officer came up to the border agent and took Carl and Alvin away for interrogation instead.
“The unfortunate part is just that [the officials] weren’t taking the time to hear us out,” Carl said. “We just wanted a fair chance and some transparency about why we weren’t allowed in.”
With them in the room of to-be deportees was a Canadian man who claimed to be a crypto-millionaire who just wanted to “see the world,” an English-speaking man who claimed to be a surgeon coming to “help people,” and a Syrian man who explained that the guard had told him the two journalists were being sent back because of “espionage issues” and that airport security was short-staffed and overwhelmed.
When asked about these concerns, the General Security spokesperson said that border control only does a preliminary background check and would need further permission from the Directorate for a more in-depth check.
Carl and Alvin’s respective embassy said it couldn’t comment on individual cases and that such issues concern Lebanese authorities alone.
One Belgian journalist who has been back and forth to Lebanon for 15 years now faced some resistance at the border this time around. But a letter from Mohammad Malli, head of the Foreign Press Center at the Ministry of Information, when handed to border control, prompted the statement “See? He’s official.”
Malli, sidestepping questions about whether he’d come under the new order for heightened vigilance or not, said he’s been inundated with “hundreds” of applications from foreign journalists wanting to cover the war in Lebanon.
