Lebanese media increasingly under fire ahead of elections
Activists say political class is closing ranks in the face of a torrent of media criticism
Astring of court cases and judicial investigations against Lebanese media figures is testing the country’s reputation as a forum for ideas in a region blanketed by censorship and threats to the press.
Lebanese authorities are getting tough on free speech ahead of national elections, summoning two leading talk show hosts to court over on-air remarks and sentencing an analyst to jail for comments she made in Washington about the Lebanese army.
A raft of taboos enshrined by law is shielding the country’s military, political leaders, and religious institutions from criticism.
“The Lebanese journalist used to be a pioneer for freedoms for the entire Arab world,” said Marcel Ganem, who is facing a lawsuit because of remarks made by a guest on his highly regarded talk show, Kalam Ennas, in November. “Is it possible that today Lebanese journalists are afraid of the spectre of the authorities?”
Ganem and others targeted by criminal suits and investigations say the political class is closing ranks ahead of parliamentary elections in May — the first national referendum in eight years — and trying to tamp down on the torrent of media opprobrium since a national trash crisis disgraced politicians in 2015.
“The vulnerable ‘system’ needs to be protected,” said Hanin Ghaddar, a Lebanese analyst at the Washington Institute, who was sentenced by a military court to six months in prison for comments she made at a US symposium in 2014.
Ghaddar, who lives in Washington, said she would not return to Lebanon to serve her sentence.
An outspoken critic of the militant group Hezbollah, Ghaddar charged that Lebanon’s army was showing leniency to the militia group while cracking down on other extremists.
‘Mark of shame’
Justice minister Salim Jreissati said Ghaddar was accusing the army of treason, and that this was not protected by the constitutionally-enshrined principle of freedom of speech.
“She calls herself Lebanese?” Jreissati hit back.
Ganem, who has hosted his show for 23 years, said he was blindsided by the charges levelled against him after he refused to testify in a criminal investigation of a guest accused of defaming Lebanon’s leaders. In a live episode, Saudi journalist Ebrahim Al Merhi had said Aoun and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri were “partners” in “Hezbollah’s terrorism.”
The Iran-backed Hezbollah is a partner in Lebanon’s ruling coalition government.
Jreissati, who belongs to Aoun’s party, said at the time that the press had lost its “moral and professional bearings.”
Others, too, have faced harassment. In July, journalist Fidaa Itani was detained and interrogated after criticising the army’s treatment of Syrian refugees in a Facebook post. He agreed to take it down.
In November, authorities arrested the head of the Civil Islamic Coalition, Ahmad Ayoubi, on charges of defaming the president and insulting a “brotherly nation.” He was later released on bail.