How political obstruction violates Beirut blast survivors’ right to truth, justice and reparations

Special How political obstruction violates Beirut blast survivors’ right to truth, justice and reparations
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More than two years after the Beirut port blast devastated the capital, an official inquiry has ground to a halt amid political infighting and claims that corrupt officials are being protected from prosecution. (AFP)
Special How political obstruction violates Beirut blast survivors’ right to truth, justice and reparations
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This photo taken on August 12, 2022 shows a part of the middle grain silos in the port of Beirut which collapsed that week following the damage caused by the August 4, 2020 massive explosion that hit the Lebanese harbor. (AFP)
Special How political obstruction violates Beirut blast survivors’ right to truth, justice and reparations
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Relatives of victims of the 2020 Beirut port explosion clash with anti-riot police during a rally on Jan. 26, 2023 to support judge Tarek Bitar in investigating the disaster. (AFP)
Special How political obstruction violates Beirut blast survivors’ right to truth, justice and reparations
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Relatives of victims of the 2020 Beirut port explosion, push against the entrance gate of the Palace of Justice in the Lebanese capital, during a rally on Jan. 26, 2023 to support judge Tarek Bitar in investigating the disaster. (AFP)
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Updated 05 February 2023

How political obstruction violates Beirut blast survivors’ right to truth, justice and reparations

How political obstruction violates Beirut blast survivors’ right to truth, justice and reparations
  • Judiciary and politicians have accused Tarek Bitar of insubordination for resuming his inquiry after a 13-month hiatus 
  • For survivors and the families of those killed in the explosion, Judge Bitar’s fresh effort offers a glimmer of hope

DUBAI: When a massive explosion tore through the port of Beirut on Aug. 4, 2020, killing more than 215 people, Lebanese officials promised a swift investigation that would bring the culprits to justice within days.

Since then, the inquiry has repeatedly stalled, with its lead investigator Tarek Bitar accused of insubordination for resuming his probe into the blast and charging several top officials.

The blast, which devastated the port and surrounding districts, injuring more than 6,500 and displacing some 300,000, occurred when a large quantity of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, improperly stored in a warehouse since 2014, somehow caught fire.

Survivors, relatives of the victims and rights groups have blamed the disaster on a political class widely viewed as corrupt and inept. To date, no official has been held accountable.




Relatives of Brirut Port blast victims clash with police outside the Palace of Justice in Beirut. (AFP)

“The stuttering investigation into the 2020 Beirut port explosion had already demonstrated that the judiciary was a plaything in the hands of powerful figures, who could gleefully toss spanners into the legal works to hamstring procedures indefinitely,” broadcaster and political commentator Baria Alamuddin said in a recent op-ed for Arab News.

Bitar’s investigation was initially halted in December 2021 due to a ruling from the Court of Cassation. Three former cabinet ministers had filed court orders against him, while groups opposed to the inquiry, including the Iran-backed Hezbollah, accused him of bias.

Bitar was already the second judge to head the investigation following Judge Fadi Sawan’s removal. In December 2020, Sawan had charged former prime minister Hassan Diab — who had resigned in the explosion’s aftermath — and three former ministers with negligence.

However, Sawan was removed from the case after mounting political pressure, and the probe was suspended.

His successor, Bitar, also summoned Diab for questioning and asked parliament, without success, to lift the immunity of lawmakers who had served as ministers. The interior ministry also refused to execute arrest warrants, further undermining Bitar’s quest for accountability.

In October 2021, protests calling for Bitar’s removal were organized by Hezbollah and the Amal Movement, a Shiite political party headed by Nabih Berri, in the civil war-scarred Beirut neighborhood of Tayouneh.




A supporter of Hezbollah and the Amal movements carries a portrait of Judge Tarek Bitar during a rally in Beirut on October 14, 2021, to demand his dismissal. (AFP)

The protests quickly turned deadly when unidentified snipers opened fire on the crowd, killing seven civilians and injuring dozens in echoes of the 1975-90 civil war period. The gunmen were suspected members of the Lebanese Forces, a right-wing Christian party.

Given these tensions and hurdles, it took many by surprise when Bitar resumed his investigation on Jan. 23 after a 13-month hiatus, charging eight new suspects, including high-level security officials and Lebanon’s top prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat.

Bitar also charged former prime minister Diab, parliamentarian Ghazi Zaiter, former interior minister Nouhad Machnouk, Major General Abbas Ibrahim, former army commander Jean Kahwaji, and Major General Tony Saliba.

Oueidat responded by issuing a travel ban against Bitar, accusing him of “sedition” and of “acting without a mandate,” charging him with “rebelling against the judiciary.” He also issued an order releasing 17 suspects held in pretrial detention.




Lebanese protest in Beirut on January 28, 2023 to demand the removal and prosecution of top prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat. (AFP)

“Lebanon’s judiciary has become an object of ridicule, as judges leveled retaliatory charges against each other and arbitrarily ordered the releases of detainees,” said columnist Alamuddin.

“By filing charges against senior officials, Bitar is not an out-of-control judge. Rather he is signaling that the entire complicit, corrupt leadership deserves to be brought to account.”

The executive-judiciary squabble is a further test of Lebanon’s crumbling institutions. Wracked by financial crisis and political paralysis, its currency in free fall and thousands of professionals and young people fleeing the country, expectations are low.

Michael Young, editor of Diwan, a blog of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Middle East Program, and author of “Ghosts of Martyrs Square,” is convinced that Bitar will not be permitted to do his work properly.

“We have to understand that there are two steps in this process,” he told Arab News. “If Bitar invites someone, it’s going to be very difficult if not impossible for him to force the people he wants to investigate to sit for their interviews.

“The police will not do anything about it because the interior ministry in its turn will not implement anything. The judicial police is controlled by the public prosecutor Oueidat, and he’s made it clear that he will not order the implementation of any decisions.

“The ability of Bitar to do his job properly is going to be, in my opinion, impossible. His investigation is technically blocked.”

Why Bitar chose to resume his inquiry now remains unclear. But for survivors and the families of those killed in the blast, his return offers a glimmer of hope.

“It was time for Judge Bitar to resume his work. The truth has to come out at some point and I think what Judge Ghassan Oueidat did by defying Judge Bitar is strengthening his will to uncover the truth,” Tatiana Hasrouty, who lost her father Ghassan Hasrouty in the blast, told Arab News.




Lebanese protesters demand during a rally in Beirut on Jan. 28. 2023 that top prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat be discharged and held accountable for the 2020 port blast. (AFP)

“I believe in Judge Bitar, not as a person, but rather as the judge who is in charge of investigating this crime and is working on uncovering the truth and upholding the rule of law. He is challenging the culture of impunity we, the Lebanese, have inherited by summoning politicians and high officials.” 

Bitar, who was first appointed as lead investigator in February 2021, was seen by many Lebanese as an impartial and honest judge.

The 49-year-old Christian, who hails from the country’s north, rarely appears in public or speaks to the press, and is known to have a clean reputation and no political affiliations, a rarity in such a deeply sectarian country.

“Bitar is disconcerting for the corrupt ruling classes because he doesn’t follow their rules,” Alamuddin said in her Arab News op-ed. “He declines invitations to social occasions to avoid perceptions of influence, and doesn’t accept calls from those seeking favors.”

In a recent sermon, influential Maronite Patriarch Beshara Al-Rahi voiced his support for Bitar, urging him to “continue his work,” despite the “unacceptable” judicial and political pushback.




Maronite Patriarch Bechara Al-Rahi. (AFP)

“The meetings of the judicial bodies are witnessing a lack of quorum with judges and public prosecutors defying the Higher Judicial Council and its head and refraining from attending the meetings,” he said.

“We will not allow the port crime to go without punishment, no matter how much time passes and how many rulers change.”

Al-Rahi, who is patriarch of the largest Christian community in the country, also called on Bitar to seek the help and assistance of any international authority that might aid him in uncovering the truth.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have called on the UN Human Rights Council to “urgently pass a resolution to create an impartial fact-finding mission” into the port explosion.

“The Lebanese authorities have repeatedly obstructed the domestic investigation into the explosion,” they said in a joint statement.

In Lebanon’s fraught political climate, the chances of obtaining justice for the port blast’s survivors and the families of those killed appear low.

“We understood from the beginning that the political class does not want the investigation to go through to the extent that they are even willing — as we saw in the Tayouneh incident over a year ago — to risk sectarian conflict to do so,” Diwan editor Young told Arab News.

“They will not implement the rule of law. It is missing anyway in Lebanon today. They do not care about the consequences of having no rule of law.”

However, Hasrouty, who has used social media to express sorrow and anger over the loss of her father, says that regardless of what Lebanese politicians and officials do, she will not give up hope.

“The truth scares the ruling elite but this is why we will pursue it till the end,” she said. “They are scared of the power that the families and public now hold.”

 

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Turkish, Syrian children collaborate on bilingual book

Turkish, Syrian children collaborate on bilingual book
Updated 01 April 2023

Turkish, Syrian children collaborate on bilingual book

Turkish, Syrian children collaborate on bilingual book
  • The book — which has been published in Turkish and Arabic — is currently being distributed to libraries, schools and museums in the city
  • “These children are the heroes of a common story,” Asli Gokgoz, a teacher and the project coordinator, told Arab News

ANKARA: As part of a project jointly funded by the Goethe Institute, the Dutch Embassy, the Swedish Consulate, the French Cultural Center, the Istanbul Culture and Art Foundation, and the Anadolu Kultur Foundation, 40 Turkish and Syrian children living in Turkiye’s southeastern province of Gaziantep have collaborated to write and illustrate a book titled “Gokce” (sky in Turkish), alluding to the fact that people of all races, cultures and creeds live together under the same sky.
Gaziantep, whose population is nearly 2 million, is home to about half a million Syrian refugees. The city has the second-highest population of Syrians after Istanbul. Currently, there are 3.6 million Syrian refugees across Turkiye, including 1.6 million children.
The book — which has been published in Turkish and Arabic — is currently being distributed to libraries, schools and museums in the city, including mobile libraries for children that were set up following the earthquake in February that left more than 50,000 people dead in Turkiye and Syria. The book’s cover bears the fingerprints of all the children who helped to produce it.
“These children are the heroes of a common story,” Asli Gokgoz, a teacher and the project coordinator, told Arab News. “They grew up with different stories, but they showed that they could come together to produce a common narrative that symbolizes the cultural, ethnical and linguistic heterogeneity of Gaziantep province.”
The book opens with a well-known sentence: Once upon a time. Then, children began developing the story jointly by consensus. It is about the adventures of a girl named Gokce, who lives with her lambs and family on a green upland full of colorful flowers.
The children received creative-writing training and attended interactive reading and drawing workshops to enable them to better express their feelings through words and drawings.
“These workshops helped them listen to their own voices while at the same time paying attention to what their peers were saying. We tried to contribute to their own journey of self-discovery and help to reestablish their self-confidence,” Gokgoz said.
“They are aware of their differences but they also know that they enjoy the same child rights. Such a project helped them establish a common story by a collective effort to blend these disparities around a common dream,” Gokgoz continued.
Several Syrian children who took part in the project came to Gaziantep to escape the brutal war in their home country, and are still struggling to rebuild their lives, especially following February’s earthquake. One of them, 14-year-old Mariam Nasser, told Arab News: “In spite of differences in ages and cultural backgrounds, we can integrate our efforts to produce valuable results. Social cohesion is an important factor for healthy communities.”
Nasser, who was born in Syria and came to Gaziantep as a refugee several years ago, said the project’s workshops had helped her develop her imagination and writing abilities.
“I liked getting to know Turkish children and playing with them. I even felt my self-confidence growing. Our common project also helped our families, because Turkish and Syrian families also built bridges between themselves and left behind several prejudices,” she said. “This book is a clear sign that children can achieve anything when they come together under the same sky.”
Another Turkish participant shares the same feeling.
“After this project, I learned how to live together under the same sky,” 10-year-old Ege Mai, a resident of Gaziantep, told Arab News. “I understood that people can be different from each other, but that we are all basically the same.”
 


Syria foreign minister makes first Egypt visit for more than a decade

Syria foreign minister makes first Egypt visit for more than a decade
Updated 01 April 2023

Syria foreign minister makes first Egypt visit for more than a decade

Syria foreign minister makes first Egypt visit for more than a decade
  • An Egyptian security source said the visit was aimed at putting in place steps for Syria’s return to the Arab League

CAIRO: Egypt and Syria agreed to strengthen cooperation on Saturday during the first official visit by a Syrian foreign minister to Cairo in more than a decade, the latest sign of Arab states mending ties with President Bashar al Assad.
Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad was embraced by Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry as he arrived at Egypt’s foreign ministry in the first official trip since before the uprising and conflict that began in Syria in 2011.
President Assad was shunned by many Western and Arab states due to the war in Syria, which splintered the country and left hundreds of thousands of people dead.
“The ministers agreed to intensify channels of communication between the two countries at different levels during the coming phase,” a statement from Egypt’s foreign ministry said.
Egypt also reiterated its backing for a “comprehensive political settlement to the Syrian crisis as soon as possible.”
An Egyptian security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the visit was aimed at putting in place steps for Syria’s return to the Arab League through Egyptian and Saudi Arabian mediation.
The Cairo-based Arab League suspended Syria’s membership in 2011 and many Arab states pulled their envoys out of Damascus.
Some countries, including the United States and Qatar, have opposed the rehabilitation of ties with Assad, citing his government’s brutality during the conflict and the need to see progress toward a political solution in Syria.
But key regional powers including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have recently signalled increasing openness toward Damascus.
Egypt’s Shoukry visited Syria and Turkiye in February after the devastating earthquakes there, and on Saturday reiterated a pledge of support for its victims.
Egypt’s foreign ministry published pictures of Shoukry warmly greeting Mekdad at the foreign ministry on the banks of the Nile, as well as in one-on-one talks and leading a wider discussion.


Sudan delays signing of deal to usher in civilian government

Sudan delays signing of deal to usher in civilian government
Updated 01 April 2023

Sudan delays signing of deal to usher in civilian government

Sudan delays signing of deal to usher in civilian government

KHARTOUM: Sudan’s military leaders and pro-democracy forces will delay the signing of an agreement to usher in a civilian government, both sides said in a joint statement issued early Saturday.
The postponement of the signing — which had been scheduled for later Saturday — comes as key security reform negotiations between the Sudanese army and the country’s powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces appear to have reached a deadlock.
A meeting will be held Saturday “to set a new date for signing the final political agreement, which could not be signed on time due to the lack of consensus on some outstanding issues,” the statement said.
Sudan has been mired in chaos after a military coup, led by the country’s top Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, removed a Western-backed power-sharing government in October 2021, upending the country’s short-lived transition to democracy.
But last December, the military, the RSF and numerous pro-democracy groups signed a preliminary deal vowing to restore the transition.
In recent months, internationally brokered workshops in Khartoum have sought to find common ground over the country’s thorniest political issues in the hope of signing a more inclusive final agreement.
Chief among the discussion points have been security sector reform and the integration of the RSF into the military — the topic of this week’s talks. But talks ended Wednesday without any clear outcome.
Shihab Ibrahim, a spokesperson for one of the largest pro-democracy groups that signed December’s deal, said the army and the RSF have struggled to reach an agreement over the timeline of the integration process.
The army wants a two-year timeline for integration while the RSF has called for a 10-year window, he said.
Spokespersons for the Sudanese army and the RSF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.


Iran’s judiciary chief threatens to prosecute ‘without mercy’ unveiled women

Iran’s judiciary chief threatens to prosecute ‘without mercy’ unveiled women
Updated 01 April 2023

Iran’s judiciary chief threatens to prosecute ‘without mercy’ unveiled women

Iran’s judiciary chief threatens to prosecute ‘without mercy’ unveiled women
  • Iran’s Interior Ministry earlier released statement that reinforced mandatory hijab law
  • Iranian women widely seen unveiled in malls, restaurants, shops and streets

TEHRAN: Faced with an increasing number of women defying the compulsory dress code, Iran’s judiciary chief has threatened to prosecute “without mercy” women who appear in public unveiled, Iranian media reported on Saturday.

Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei’s warning comes on the heels of an Interior Ministry statement on Thursday that reinforced the government’s mandatory hijab law.

“Unveiling is tantamount to enmity with (our) values,” Ejei was quoted as saying by several news sites. Those “who commit such anomalous acts will be punished” and will be “prosecuted without mercy,” he said, without saying what the punishment entails.

Ejei, Iran’s chief justice, said law enforcement officers were “obliged to refer obvious crimes and any kind of abnormality that is against the religious law and occurs in public to judicial authorities”.

A growing number of Iranian women have been ditching their veils since the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman in the custody of the morality police last September. Mahsa Amini had been detained for allegedly violating the hijab rule.

Government forces violently put down months of nationwide revolt unleashed by her death.

Still, risking arrest for defying the obligatory dress code, women are widely seen unveiled in malls, restaurants, shops and streets around the country. Videos of unveiled women resisting the morality police have flooded social media.

Under Iran’s Islamic Sharia law, imposed after the 1979 revolution, women are obliged to cover their hair and wear long, loose-fitting clothes to disguise their figures. Violators have faced public rebuke, fines or arrest.

Describing the veil as “one of the civilizational foundations of the Iranian nation” and “one of the practical principles of the Islamic Republic,” the Interior Ministry statement on Thursday said there would be no “retreat or tolerance” on the issue.

It urged ordinary citizens to confront unveiled women. Such directives have in past decades emboldened hard-liners to attack women without impunity.

And on Saturday, Iranian authorities ordered the arrest of two women after a viral video appeared to show them being attacked by a man for not wearing the hijab.

Video footage widely shared on social media in Iran appeared to show the two female customers, who were not wearing the mandatory hijab or headscarf, in a shop being assaulted by a man after a verbal altercation.

The footage shows the man pouring a bucket of what appears to be yogurt on the two women’s heads before he is confronted by the shopkeeper.

Authorities issued an arrest warrant against the man “on charges of committing an insulting act and disturbance of order,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online website reported.

But it added arrest warrants were also issued for the two women for “committing a forbidden act” by removing their headscarves.

“Necessary notices have been issued to the owner of the shop where this happened in order to comply with legal and Sharia principles according to the regulations,” it added.

* With AFP and Reuters


Israeli police kill Palestinian at Al-Aqsa entrance

Israeli police kill Palestinian at Al-Aqsa entrance
Updated 01 April 2023

Israeli police kill Palestinian at Al-Aqsa entrance

Israeli police kill Palestinian at Al-Aqsa entrance
  • Palestinian and Israeli sources disputed the circumstances that led to the killing of Mohammed Al-Osaibi, 26
  • Settlers group announces rewards for those who can offer Passover sacrifices inside mosque

RAMALLAH: A Palestinian man was shot and killed by Israeli police in the early hours of Saturday at the entrance of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem.
Palestinian and Israeli sources disputed the circumstances that led to the killing of Mohammed Al-Osaibi, 26, an ethnic Bedouin Israeli citizen from the Negev region.
Talab Al-Sanee, a former Israeli lawmaker and the representative of Bedouin Arab villages of the Negev, told Arab News that Al-Osaibi was killed when he tried to intervene after seeing Israeli police and border guards assaulting a young Palestinian woman and trying to remove her from the mosque’s courtyards.
Israeli police said the man grabbed a gun from a police officer who had stopped him for questioning and managed to fire two shots before police killed him. Each side has vehemently rejected the other’s version.
“The police claim that he tried to snatch someone’s weapon is a lie and slander. The police, with their cameras, document everything big and small, and I challenge the police to show the video documenting the attempt to snatch a weapon, as they claim,” Al-Sanee, who is representing Al-Osaibi’s case, told Arab News.
“This heinous crime is a wake-up call and a natural result of the unbridled racist incitement against the Arab masses. What is required is the dismissal of Itamar Ben-Gvir, the racist minister of Israel’s national security, the biggest instigator against the Arab masses,” he said.
He called for the establishment of an independent investigation committee headed by a judge, and the strengthening of Muslim presence at Al-Aqsa.
He said some elements in the civil movement against the government “plan to form armed militias that obey the orders of the fascist Bin-Gvir.”
A Jerusalem police statement said the suspect was alone and had been stopped for questioning after the closing time of Al-Aqsa. “At some point, Al-Osaibi suddenly attacked one of the police officers who asked the suspect to come outside and tried to grab the secured gun on the policeman’s body. Al-Osaibi managed to take the weapon and fire two bullets from it,” it claimed.
The police officer “physically struggled with him” before a shot was fired at the man “and he was neutralized on the spot,” it said.
Videos shared on social media captured the sound of at least 11 gunshots in quick succession.
Al-Osaibi’s family has demanded that police release security footage of the incident to prove “the allegations that their son pulled a soldier’s weapon,” but the police said there was no video of the incident.
A large group of Muslims staged a mass prayer outside the holy site after the incident, video from the scene showed.
Local authorities in Al-Osaibi’s native region of Rahat in Negev called for a general strike on Sunday in protest.
Palestinian presidency spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh warned in a statement against what he described as “the dangerous escalation by the Israeli occupation authorities,” calling the Israeli version of the incident “fabricated.”
He said the Israeli escalation at Al-Aqsa Mosque could lead to an explosion of anger.
Since the beginning of the year, at least 90 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis.
Ayman Odeh, an Israeli-Arab parliamentarian, denounced the “cold-blooded murder” of Al-Osaibi and called it part of the occupation’s systematic anti-Palestinian policy. It warned that the current far-right government would escalate these crimes to set fire to the region to escape from its internal crises.
The Islamic Jihad Movement called the killing “a dangerous, aggressive escalation aimed at terrorizing worshipers,” while the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine warned of “severe repercussions.”
Meanwhile, the Returning to the Temple Mount group has announced a financial reward for those who manage to slaughter the Passover offerings inside Al-Aqsa Mosque.
“Financial compensation for every settler who can slaughter the Jewish Passover sacrifice inside Al-Aqsa courtyards, even if he tried and was stopped,” read a message on the group’s Facebook page.
“This is the time to sacrifice for Passover. If you succeed the prize is 20,000 shekels ($5,555). If you get arrested with a goat inside Al-Aqsa Mosque, 2,500 shekels ($694),” it said.
Hamas warned Israel following the settlers’ threat.
Its spokesman for Jerusalem, Mohammed Hamada, said: “Our Palestinian people will not remain silent in the face of settlers’ threats to slaughter sacrifices in Al-Aqsa Mosque.
“The occupation must know very well that its desecration of the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque will be met with a reaction.”
On Wednesday evening, 15 rabbis sent a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir requesting that settlers be allowed to slaughter this year’s Passover offerings on the “Temple Mount”, or Al-Aqsa Mosque.