Cel­e­bra­tory gun­fire claims more lives

Of­fi­cials say they can’t end the deadly prac­tice, ev­ery­one must lend a hand

The Daily Star (Lebanon) - - LEBANON - By Ghinwa Obeid

BEIRUT: Le­banese au­thor­i­ties can­not put an end to the deadly phe­nom­e­non of cel­e­bra­tory gun­fire on their own, a se­cu­rity source said Mon­day, as an­other vic­tim of the prac­tice was laid to rest in Beirut.

Wis­sam Bleik, a first sergeant at the Beirut Fire De­part­ment, was al­legedly killed by a stray bul­let that hit him Satur­day night, though the ex­act cir­cum­stances of his death are not yet clear. Bleik was a mar­ried fa­ther of three. His fu­neral pray­ers were held at Aysha Bakkar Mosque in Beirut.

Il­le­gal gun­fire pep­per­ing the skies has been the norm in Le­banon for decades. Shots are fired in the air on all kinds of oc­ca­sions: weddings, fu­ner­als, elec­tions – and even po­lit­i­cal speeches.

“Shoot­ing is present in Le­banon and has be­come a mor­bid so­cial phe­nom­e­non that needs to be solved, but when any such prac­tice turns into a phe­nom­e­non, it re­quires all so­ci­ety’s mem­bers and in­sti­tu­tions to come to­gether,” a se­nior In­ter­nal Se­cu­rity Forces source told The Daily Star. “It goes be­yond in­di­vid­ual work or the work of one in­sti­tu­tion to be able to solve it.”

The source said that cel­e­bra­tory gun­fire didn’t re­flect Le­banon’s civ­i­lized na­ture and was do­ing the coun­try more harm than good. The gun­fire also brought back mem­o­ries of the dev­as­tat­ing 1975-90 Civil War and the chaos that gov­erned it, the source added.

“We can’t put thou­sands of peo­ple [ISF mem­bers] un­der the win­dows, on the roofs and un­der the bal­conies of each per­son to check if they’re fir­ing.”

The ISF has been work­ing to raise aware­ness among cit­i­zens on the dangers of cel­e­bra­tory gun­fire on its Twit­ter ac­count with the hash­tag #do you ac­cept to kill. It has also re­leased in­struc­tions for cit­i­zens so they can co­op­er­ate with the ISF to bring per­pe­tra­tors to jus­tice.

If they wit­ness a per­son shoot­ing in the air, cit­i­zens can doc­u­ment the in­ci­dent by tak­ing a pic­ture or a video and send­ing it to the ISF through the “in­form” ser­vice on their web­site.

“[The hash­tag] was more than just shak­ing [peo­ple’s] con­science, it’s also a process for peo­ple to in­form us,” the source said. “When this be­comes a so­cial phe­nom­e­non … peo­ple should help us.”

The source said that these tips can help the ISF carry out its work and hold shoot­ers ac­count­able for their ac­tions. One ex­am­ple the source gave was when a so­cial me­dia ac­count shared a video with the ISF show­ing a man care­lessly shoot­ing in the air in what was al­leged to be the Chiyah south­ern sub­urb of Beirut. The sus­pect was later ar­rested based on the in­for­ma­tion.

A se­nior Army source as­sured The Daily Star that the Army con­tin­ued to warn against fir­ing in the air in its state­ments, and said that per­pe­tra­tors were be­ing held to ac­count.

“All of those shoot­ing are be­ing pros­e­cuted, and [the per­pe­tra­tors] are be­ing ar­rested,” the source said.

Ex­tra cau­tion has been em­ployed dur­ing the on­go­ing mu­nic­i­pal elec­tions. “Af­ter ev­ery elec­toral process, Army pa­trols are in­ten­si­fied, es­pe­cially in cities, to pre­vent cel­e­bra­tory gun­fire,” the source said.

“This [phe­nom­e­non] will not be ab­sent, but it is de­creas­ing be­cause there is con­stant pros­e­cu­tion and ar­rests are be­ing made.”

The source ad­mit­ted that cel­e­bra­tory gun­fire was harder to con­trol in small towns, but said mea­sures were be­ing taken to pros­e­cute of­fend­ers.

When asked what more can be done to end the deadly prac­tice, the source said, “In ad­di­tion to our work, we should show the peo­ple who are shoot­ing in the air how much they are caus­ing deaths and in­juries to peo­ple.”

On sev­eral oc­ca­sions cel­e­bra­tory gun­fire has killed or in­jured cit­i­zens.

Patina Raidy, 8, suc­cumbed to her wounds af­ter be­ing struck by a stray bul­let in Jbeil in March. A young man was killed in Baal­bek-- Her­mel ear­lier this month and Hus­sein Kheired­dine, born in 2005, was wounded Fri­day.

Hezbol­lah Sec­re­tary-Gen­eral Sayyed Hasan Nas­ral­lah was speak­ing that day.

Gun­fire echoed across Beirut dur­ing Nas­ral­lah’s speech, though both the party and Nas­ral­lah per­son­ally have pleaded with sup­port­ers to re­frain from shoot­ing on mul­ti­ple oc­ca­sions. There was a brief ad­her­ence to the pleas in re­cent months be­fore shoot­ing re­sumed.

“The com­mit­ment of those in­side the or­ga­ni­za­tion is al­most firm, but there are some sup­port­ers or civil­ians who have shot in the air on sev­eral oc­ca­sions and the sayyed has is­sued more than one call [against this phe­nom­e­non],” a March 8 source told The Daily Star.

Hezbol­lah has re­port­edly tried to help sup­press the gun­fire in ar­eas un­der its con­trol, but the source called it “a bad habit” that Le­banese prac­tice across the coun­try.

“There is no so­lu­tion to this through is­su­ing calls; the so­lu­tion is by strict pu­n­ish­ment along with more aware­ness and ed­u­ca­tion, so that weapons no longer be­come used in this way,” the source said, ex­plain­ing that Hezbol­lah ve­he­mently re­jected cel­e­bra­tory gun­fire.

The party is work­ing on a num­ber of dif­fer­ent lev­els to cau­tion against shoot­ing in the air, and un­der­scored its co­op­er­a­tion with se­cu­rity agen­cies, the source said.

“There is co­op­er­a­tion when the se­cu­rity forces want to pun­ish those who shoot in the air, and we had orig­i­nally called on the ju­di­ciary and se­cu­rity forces to strike with an iron fist in re­gard to this mat­ter.”

Dur­ing a news con­fer­ence about the mu­nic­i­pal elec­tions Sun­day, In­te­rior Min­is­ter Nouhad Mach­nouk called those who shoot in the air “crim­i­nals.”

“All mea­sures should be taken against them,” Mach­nouk said. “I call on all po­lit­i­cal fig­ures and au­thor­i­ties to take re­spon­si­bil­ity of this.”

An­gry, griev­ing crowds carry the cof­fin of Bleik in Beirut.

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