Lebanon: Righteous indignation in Beirut streets as a result of the explosions

August 10, 2020, Beirut, Lebanon -- Following the devastating explosion in Beirut port on August 4, the citizens got together to clean the rubble, distribute waters, heal the wounds and house the unfortunate.

However as the death toll reached 158, the city which has felt a grave sense of injustice since 2019, following the crashing of the economy also got together to make their voices heard and seek “revenge” from the political elite.

The government has vowed to investigate the blast and hold those responsible to account and arrested 19 suspects. But as residents waded through the warlike destruction on Wednesday to salvage what they could from their homes and businesses, many saw the explosion as the culmination of years of mismanagement and neglect by the country’s politicians.

Throughout the weekend angry protesters demanded accountability from politicians which resulted in the resignation of eight of them and a call for early elections. 

Protesters who called for a revolution to change the corrupt system of governance in the country were faced with tear gas, rubber bullets and blatant violence by security forces.

“I lost my house, my car, my job, I lost friends,” said a protester, Eddy Gabriel, during an interview with the New York Times “There is nothing to be afraid of. Everything is gone.”

Lebanese people were already filled with fury against the system and indeed with the economy which has sunk, banks that refused to give depositors access to their money, and unemployment and inflation soaring; the latest explosions brought the tensions to a boiling point.

In a piece CFWIJ member Luna Safwan wrote for CNN, protesters showed resilience despite the excessive force used by security forces' response did not appear to disperse many of the angry protesters. “One woman who fell over as she stumbled over people running in her direction, said: "They bombed our city. I will go back in." Her face soaked with tears, she picked up her belongings, as well as some stones, and headed back into the crowd.”

Luna herself was slightly injured following the protests, mainly due to running into shattered glass in the city and tear gas use by security forces.

Reporting from #Beirut's protests today - with debris everywhere, the Riot police did not hesitate and started throwing teargas cannisters at the crowd next to the municipality of Beirut. We got our share but mostly its about avoiding being pushed into the shards of glass. pic.twitter.com/52UcZIH3F7

— Luna Safwan - لونا صفوان (@LunaSafwan) August 8, 2020

Dozens of demonstrators, including twelve journalists, were injured and affected by tear gas during their coverage of the demonstrations while members of the "Amal" movement assaulted a reporter and three others were injured by the stones of the demonstrators.

Photographer Rita Kabalan was chased off by army forces, hit with a rifle and sustained injury on her collarbone while they were covering the clashes between security forces and demonstrators and "Al Jadeed" correspondent Layal Bou Moussa was hit by a stone in her head getting caught in the midst of clashes. CFWIJ fellow Agnieszka Pikulicka-Wilczewska who landed in Beirut over the weekend to report from the ground was also affected by tear gas.

During the interview Rita gave us, she said she has covered multiple protests before but she has never seen this type of violence, experiencing concern about a crackdown on freedom of the press in Lebanon: “I was covering the military’s action towards civilians who were peacefully protesting and it seemed so indiscriminate and targeted. I saw the security forces pushing and attacking people who were standing by a hill, and chasing and beating up a man after he already fell and was yelling ‘shame on you’. The officer then pushed me in the back with the butt of his M16, the fall made my collarbone to break, and I am almost sure the reason he kept pushing me after I was on the ground was because I was a journalist. He yelled at me “yallah” when he pushed me to the ground, it was as if he was telling me “come on fall and roll down already”, his attitude was very vindictive. He didn’t even try to take away my camera because he trusted in himself so much that there will be no justice served for his actions, even if I record them.

This is something I had never experienced before, I was very actively reporting throughout October, November and December. Security forces would just politely ask for press badges. The attitude towards civilians was something I had never seen either. People were throwing them water bottles and the military was charging them with live ammunition, there was no mercy in the officers that were on ground that day. 

But it is also important to highlight that it is not peculiar to the officers on ground that day, you see lots of people in Lebanon have some family members in the military and they are adamant to criticize the military. We need to realize that it is systemic abuse and those military members work for and protect corrupt people who killed us in many ways. They killed us by poisoning our soil, they killed us by pushing us to poverty, they killed us with their guns and now with this explosion. 

First couple of days following the explosions everyone was out there cleaning up, and searching for victims in the rubbles, military was just standing around protecting the vile politicians who pushed people to this situation. I don’t see this anger going down anytime soon, but what Lebanese people have been going through has also been mentally debilitating. When you have no electricity, no water, no access to your accounts and overnight, numerous middle class people lose all they worked for and start picking food from the garbage, one can anticipate the mental battle. But we either give in and die in their hands or resist and die on our foot.”

Righteous anger of the Lebanese people will not extinguish before they see signs of responsibility and justice. 

Sarah Boukhary, Middle East & North Africa Advocacy Coordinator at Women's International League for Peace and Freedom said that the past decade seemed like a vicious cycle for the Lebanese and called for the end of corruption: “They steal our money. They starve us. They repress us when we demand radical change. They kill us. They wipe out our beloved city. They take away the lives of hundreds and injure thousands in a few seconds. So we take to the streets to demand justice and revenge. They then detain us and they use live ammunition against us.”

The Coalition For Women In Journalism calls upon authorities to stop using ammunition tear gas on citizens, especially journalists and respect the right of people to exercise their right to assembly and protest especially in this time of tension and mourning.