Journalist given jail sentence for Lebanon army remark

A Lebanese journalist and academic has been sentenced in absentia to six months in prison for comments she made about the country’s army.

Hanin Ghaddar’s remarks came at a panel discussion in Washington in May 2014 titled Syria and its Repercussions.

She was convicted by a military court for “attacking the Lebanese army”. Local media said the comments in question concerned the army “involving itself in sectarian conflicts”.

During the discussion, Ghaddar said of the Lebanese army: “This is creating injustice, and this injustice is not going to end well. The Sunnis are being clamped down on by Hizbollah and the Lebanese army.”

Ghaddar, 45, lives in the United States, and works as a visiting fellow at think tank The Washington Institute.

Hizbollah is not an official part of the country’s armed forces, although the Iranian backed group has thousands of militiamen at its disposal and is widely seen as better resourced and more influential than Lebanese soldiers.

During the panel, she also referred to Hizbollah’s fighters in Syria as “thugs”, comments that proved controversial at the time.

Although she was not sentenced for comments relating to Hizbollah, those specific remarks provoked outrage in some Lebanese circles, and she was criticised by several local news outlets, including Hizbollah-aligned daily newspaper Al Akhbar.

Colleagues and commentators took to Twitter to express solidarity with Ghaddar, and to voice concern over the decline of freedom of expression in Lebanon.

Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute, tweeted: “The entire @WashInstitute family – and, I believe, all fair-minded people – stand w/@ haningdr in denouncing this outrageous verdict and what passes for ‘justice’ in #Lebanon today.”

Albin Szakola, a former colleague of Ghaddar’s, tweeted: “Will any of Lebanon’s politicians criticise unjust sentence against @ haningdr? Or are the pathetic remnants of March 14 too busy scheming for a piece of the pie in a region where Hizbollah saved Assad’s grip on power.”

The sentence comes amid a wider decline in freedom of expression in Lebanon.

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The Post was briefly banned by Lebanese censors, on account of the director’s film on the Holocaust, Schindler’s List. The decision was later overturned following international controversy. When contacted by The

National, Ghaddar declined to comment on the grounds that an appeal was in process.