Flyers containing messages targeting several MPs who voted in favor of the general amnesty law. (Credit: Courtesy of Michel Hallak/L'Orient Today)
BEIRUT — The Free Patriotic Movement’s youth sector distributed flyers targeting MPs who voted in favor of Lebanon’s newly passed general amnesty law, the FPM’s Jezzine branch said Sunday, claiming responsibility for the campaign after MP Saeed al-Asmar asked security agencies to investigate the “anonymous” flyers.
The flyers were distributed in villages and towns across the Jezzine area early Sunday and featured documents designed to resemble criminal records of regional MPs, according to the FPM’s Jezzine branch.
The FPM said the campaign was being carried out by its youth sector across Lebanon “in protest against the general amnesty law and the positions of the MPs who supported it.”
The party said the flyers were a political protest against the law, which Parliament passed on Aug. 12, the first general amnesty law enacted in Lebanon since 1991.
The legislation has been controversial, particularly over provisions that reduce certain sentences and grant amnesty to categories of prisoners and detainees. Critics, including families of fallen military and security personnel, have objected to provisions benefiting people convicted in cases involving the killing of members of the Lebanese Army and security forces.
The flyers carried the phrase “with blood,” which the FPM said was “a symbolic reference to the blood of the military martyrs.”
The FPM said the campaign was intended to hold lawmakers politically accountable for their votes, rejecting what it described as an attempt to turn the issue into a security matter.
“We reject the attempt to move the issue from its natural place — political debate and accountability — to the security track, and to portray an openly declared political campaign as an anonymous intimidation operation,” the Jezzine branch said.
The law was passed following a contentious debate that exposed divisions across the country’s political landscape. MPs from Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement walked out of the session before the law was passed, while the final text reflected a cross-sectarian political compromise addressing several categories of prisoners and detainees.
The law provides relief to several groups, including more than 1,200 Sunni detainees, minor and first-time drug offenders, and Lebanese who fled to Israel after the collapse of the South Lebanon Army in 2000.
Asmar asks for investigation
Asmar said Sunday that unidentified people had distributed flyers targeting several MPs in Jezzine and that he had contacted the relevant security agencies after receiving information about similar flyers in Jounieh.
“We contacted the relevant security agencies and placed the available information and photographs at their disposal, asking them to open an investigation to identify the people and the party behind this campaign, and to determine its aims and motives,” Asmar said in a statement posted on Facebook.
He said the content of the flyers and the “organized and anonymous” manner in which they were distributed in more than one area raised “serious questions” that should not be ignored.
Asmar said he supported political disagreement and freedom of expression but rejected any attempt to move from expressing a political position to direct or implicit intimidation or threats.
“Any attempt to move from expressing a position to intimidation or threats, direct or implicit, is rejected and will not deter us from carrying out our duties and exercising our parliamentary role freely and responsibly,” he said.
The FPM responded that MPs have the right to disagree with the flyers and answer them politically, while citizens and political parties have the right to question and criticize lawmakers over their parliamentary votes.
