Kulluna Irada denounces smear campaign against it

The Lebanese think tank and advocacy group Kulluna Irada, specializing in governance issues and political and economic reforms, held a press conference Wednesday at the Beirut Digital District to denounce a smear campaign against it, which it attributed to actors whose "interests are threatened" by its actions.

It was the first time this year that the NGO organized a press conference to respond to attacks from its adversaries. These adversaries were not named but were linked to the "banking lobby and its political allies," who are opposed to Kulluna Irada's proposals for a restructuring of the financial sector to bring Lebanon out of the crisis. The objective of the initiative was to demonstrate "the unfounded nature of the accusations" and to reaffirm its mission after a "systematic campaign" aimed, according to it, at "misleading public opinion."

Kulluna Irada, which has advocated for strict adherence to international standards in bank bankruptcy and an equitable distribution of the resulting losses in a crisis-stricken Lebanon since 2019, was targeted in mid-March by a judicial report for "attempting to destabilize the Lebanese financial system," among other grievances.

Last week, the public prosecutor, Jamal Hajjar, forwarded the files targeting Kulluna Irada as well as the media outlets Daraj and Megaphone, subject to the same accusations, to the prosecutor at the Beirut Court of Appeal, Ziad Abi Haïdar.

During her intervention, Wafa Saab, a board member of the civic organization, clarified the association's funding sources: "Kulluna Irada is exclusively funded by its members" contributions. All allegations of external support — whether from Soros, the Open Society or others — are slander. A simple check on their official websites is enough to prove it, she stated.

Lawyer Diane Assaf, legal advisor to the organization, said that the think tank was "fully prepared to cooperate with the judicial authorities" to clarify what she describes as "false statements."

"If Kulluna Irada is responsible for the collapse of the Lebanese pound, the economic crisis, and the national disaster, and not the successive governments, the Central Bank (BDL), or the some banks, then ... peace be upon the world," she added.

One of the main challenges of the association is "the battle for reforms," Labib Abou Zahr, co-president of the NGO, explained. This fight directly opposes the beneficiaries of the corrupt system and those fearing the application of laws. It is about holding accountable the actors of the economic collapse, united despite their differences by their fear of real change. This struggle aims to protect depositors' rights and enhance public finance transparency.

Without explicitly naming this "alliance" that, through "its political and media influence, has systematically blocked any reform attempt in the past," Abou Zahr stated that "we are all witnessing an orchestrated campaign — fierce, methodical, and systematic—combining intimidation and distortion of facts," aiming to "target" all those who are concretely working for reform.

Attacks against Kulluna Irada began in the wake of Joseph Aoun's election and Nawaf Salam's appointment as prime minister. In an interview with L’Orient-Le Jour published on Feb. 8, the day the government was formed, Kulluna Irada's public policy director and former L'Orient-Le Jour collaborator, Sibylle Rizk, stated that the campaign against the organization was aimed at Salam and his reformist agenda.

According to Abou Zahr, this "alliance" pursues a dual objective: "To stifle voices denouncing the real culprits of the collapse" — the very ones who have systematically blocked all reforms in recent years — while "manipulating" public opinion through a "rewrite" of past events. This falsification of the historical narrative aims at both exonerating the authors of the economic catastrophe and discrediting the forces engaged in fighting corruption and advocating for reforms.

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