Conflict Incident Report

Dozens of people rallied in Martyrs’ Square to condemn a recent spate of high-profile crimes across the country, as leading political figures met at Baabda Palace to discuss projects for the coming months.

The campaign, dubbed “The uprising of the decent [people] against the thugs,” came as the heads of major parties represented in government met at Baabda Palace to establish a consensus over the focus of Parliament and Cabinet from now until the election set for spring 2018.

Salman Samhan, the rally organizer, said the protesters wanted to lay down their demands to the political leaders at Baabda Palace.

“We don’t want the blood of our beloveds to be wasted,” Samhan said, according to local media.

The campaign called on politicians to declare a state of emergency to curb Lebanon’s “security chaos,” and to establish additional fixed security checkpoints, manned 24 hours a day, throughout the country.

The protesters also called on ministers to revoke all firearms licenses, conduct a thorough study on prison conditions and inmate reform, end talk of a general amnesty for suspects and inmates, enforce stricter penalties for those convicted of carrying out crimes, and shorten the wait times for trials. “The most dangerous matter is losing confidence in security forces and [the] judiciary,” Elsy Hoballah, the mother of a man killed in a shooting, told TV stations while taking part in the rally. Hoballah addressed President Michel Aoun and party leaders directly.

“We appreciate your efforts to distance Lebanon from regional conflicts,” she said, “but the spread of thugs on our streets ... is negatively impacting our livelihoods.”

Residents of the Bekaa Valley’s Baalbeck regularly stage protests against the crimes that take place in the city. Areas of the Bekaa are near no-go zones for security forces, which face stiff opposition from both local tribes and armed criminal gangs. Crime in the Bekaa is rampant, and kidnappings, car thefts and blood feuds occur regularly.

But Baalbeck isn’t the only area affected. University student Roy Hamoush was shot and killed on the Jal al-Dib highway on June 7 after he and a friend got into a dispute with men in another vehicle. One of the men is alleged to have shot Hamoush in the head. The killing drew widespread condemnation.

In the wake of recent high-profile crimes, Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk called for a “political understanding” to end Lebanon’s moratorium on the death penalty.

Capital punishment remains legal in Lebanon but has not been implemented since 2004. “We don’t need to make a new law,” Machnouk said at Hamoush’s funeral in Beirut’s Mar Elias Church, where the minister paid respects to the family on behalf of Aoun and Prime Minister Saad Hariri. “There just needs to be a political understanding,” he said.

The Lebanese Constitution grants no right to bear arms, but the government allows the possession of weapons at its discretion with minimal oversight.