Dozens of demonstrators gathered on Saturday in front of the Beirut homes of several Tripoli deputies, in solidarity with the protest movement in the northern capital.
Tripolitans have been demonstrating regularly against power, the crisis and the strengthening of sanitary confinement, since its entry into force in mid-January, but the tension has risen a notch throughout the past week and sit-ins have degenerated several days in a row into clashes with the security forces and the army. This violence left two dead and several hundred injured.
Activists therefore took turns on Saturday in front of the buildings inhabited in particular by Tarek Merhebi, Nagib Mikati, Mohammad Kabbara and Dima Jamali, according to videos broadcast live on the Akhbar al-Saha Facebook page. Protesters also held a sit-in outside the home of outgoing Interior Minister Mohammad Fahmi. “Revolutionaries, free, we continue our journey!” Chanted the activists who expressed their solidarity “until death” with the Tripolitan protesters. Using stencils, they tagged the walls of buildings with the phrase “blood is on your hands” and threw red paint depicting “the blood of the people of Tripoli”. Outside the house of MP Dima Jamali, protesters criticized her “having a good time” in the United Arab Emirates “while the people are dying of hunger in Tripoli”. Ms. Jamali was appointed Dean of the University of Sharjah and left Lebanon for several months, without however giving up her deputation in Lebanon.
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“Mohammad Fahmi is a thug!”, Shouted the activists again in front of the minister’s home in Koraytem, denouncing the violent repression of demonstrations by the police.
Solidarity
Shortly before, a few dozen people had gathered in Beirut’s Martyrs Square for a sit-in in solidarity with Tripoli, according to the National News Agency (Ani, official).
Lebanese officials have said in recent days that some parties were seeking to “exploit” the protest in Tripoli for political ends. Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri criticized the army for failing to prevent the fire in the municipality’s headquarters on Thursday evening, while Nagib Mikati, deputy and former chief executive, announced that ‘He would not hesitate to take up arms to defend himself if the security forces failed to protect him.
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In Tripoli, a few hundred people gathered at the so-called “Abu Ali” roundabout, in front of a barrage of flaming tires, to demand the release of a young man who was allegedly arrested for having set the building on fire. municipal, reports our sister publication, L’Orient Today.
Sit-in at Baalbeck, Hasbaya and Minié
Earlier in the day, one-off sit-ins were organized in several regions of Lebanon to protest against the deterioration of living conditions in a country hit by a series of crises, aggravated in recent weeks by reinforced health measures .
In Minié, some women blocked the main road in the region, deploring not being able to provide for their families, reports the National Information Agency (Ani, official). In Tripoli, the Beddaoui highway was blocked by burning tires.
In the south of the country, in Hasbaya, a few dozen protesters shouted their anger at the confinement, in force since mid-January and which was extended at least until February 8. They expressed their solidarity with the Tripolitan demonstrators, according to our local correspondent Mountasser Abdallah. “We want to revive the protest and the spirit of the revolution in order to overcome the corrupt political class in power,” said Mohammad al-Baba, one of the activists present on the spot, from Saïda. The protesters then marched through the streets of the locality.
In Baalbeck, in the Bekaa, it was the traders who demonstrated in front of the Seraglio in order to ask for state aid and permission to open their stores a few hours a day. They have raised the threat of civil disobedience if their demands are not heard.
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Dozens of demonstrators gathered on Saturday in front of the Beirut homes of several Tripoli deputies, in solidarity with the protest movement in the northern capital. Tripolitans have been demonstrating regularly against power, the crisis and the strengthening of sanitary confinement, since its entry into force in mid-January, but the tension has mounted …
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