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Conflict Incident Report
Activists put up flyers against Parliament extension around Beirut
BEIRUT: Activists overnight put up flyers on across Beirut denouncing a possible third parliamentary term extension, calling the Parliament "expired."
"No to Extension" and "Your Extension is an Occupation," some of the fliers put up by activists from the For the Republic civil campaign read. "No governing without popular legitimacy," said another.
One flier depicted a bar code representing the Parliament, with the word "Expired" written underneath.
The group also announced a protest scheduled for 10 a.m. on Thursday at the Riad al-Solh Square in Downtown Beirut on Facebook.
“In the event of a legislative session on Thursday, all citizens, independent and partisan, must come to the streets intensively to confront this coup against the people and their rights, voicing an uncompromising refusal to be governed by a council that we do not elect,” it said in a Facebook post.
For the Republic has been involved a number of other protests in the past, most recently the movement against a tax hike to fund a salary scale for public employees.
A new political rift emerged on Tuesday over attempts by Speaker Nabih Berri to go ahead with plans to extend Parliament’s term for one more year, following two extensions in 2013 and 2014.
Berri and parties that support the extensions say they aim to prevent the country from falling into parliamentary vacuum.
Rival political groups have been seeking to reach accord on a new vote law, but failed.