Beirut courthouse. (Credit: NNA)
Lawyers for journalists from independent media outlets Daraj and Megaphone appeared before the Attorney General at the Court of Cassation, Mirna Kallas, after defamation complaints were filed against them by Antoun Sehnaoui, Chairman and CEO of Société Générale de Banque au Liban (SGBL). Diana Menhem, CEO of Kulluna Irada, also appeared before the Lebanese courts on Tuesday.
The director of the NGO Kulluna Irada was also scheduled to appear before the Lebanese courts on Tuesday. The lawyers asked Kallas to refer the case to the Printed Materials Court. Their request has not yet been decided.
Initiated in 2024 and renewed by the filing of a second complaint in March 2025, these proceedings against Sehnaoui were launched after the publication in 2023 of reports on alleged “financial malfeasance” by SGBL and the Lebanese banking sector in general.
'Incitement to bank panic'
The Lebanese prosecutor's office summoned several journalists from Daraj and Megaphone, as well as the executive director of the advocacy group Kulluna Irada, for investigative hearings. Daraj editor-in-chief Hazem al-Amine and journalist Jana Barakat were already summoned twice by the Lebanese Cybercrime and Intellectual Property Rights Brigade.
Meanwhile, three lawyers accused Daraj and Megaphone of undermining the state's financial stability, "inciting bank runs," "disturbing public order," and "foreign financing with the aim of harming the country." A complaint was forwarded by the Beirut Attorney General to the Court of Appeal on March 26.
Kulluna Irada, a think tank and lobby group that has been calling for financial restructuring to resolve the crisis since 2019, is also the subject of a legal complaint accusing it of spreading "false information" that could "undermine national morale" and "confidence in the currency and government bonds."
The NGO was recently the target of a hostile campaign relayed by certain media outlets, on social media and by opinion polls close to the banking sector. In a statement published on its website, it rejected all of these accusations "which have gone as far as personal attacks against its members" and denounced "intimidation aimed at any attempt by the new executive authorities to implement the restructuring of the banking sector and public finances, which has been blocked for five years by powerful political and financial interests," a source close to the organization told L'Orient-Le Jour.
Human Rights Watch denounces
The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) denounced in a report published on Monday the "resurgence of criminal prosecutions for defamation and other vague accusations targeting journalists, independent media and civil society organizations in Lebanon."
HRW particularly deplored "the systematic use of criminal defamation laws as a tool of intimidation." Its deputy Middle East director, Adam Coogle, also pointed out that "recent political changes have not slowed the crackdown on independent media and NGOs investigating financial misconduct." The NGO said that even if the Lebanese courts sometimes reject these complaints, "they have a major chilling effect, fueling self-censorship." It called on Parliament, currently reviewing the media law, to repeal the criminal provisions on insult and defamation and replace them with civil sanctions in line with international standards.
Between 2015 and 2019, the Cybercrime Bureau conducted no fewer than 3,599 defamation investigations, according to a previous HRW report, a 325 percent increase in prosecutions related to online speech coinciding with the onset of the economic and financial crisis in 2019.
In a joint statement in March, several Lebanese media outlets, NGOs and members of parliament condemned this crackdown on press freedom and called on prosecutors to dismiss politically motivated prosecutions against journalists.
“Without deep reforms, Lebanon’s defamation laws will continue to stifle critical speech,” Coogle stated. “While the Lebanese government promises key financial, judicial, and social reforms, it should also work to strengthen the law’s protections for free expression.”
This article was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.
