Conflict Incident Report

BEIRUT: Longtime Lebanese tenants continued to protest a controversial rent law, holding a demonstration in Beirut's Barbir Square.

“This is by far the worst law [that will] leave us displaced at the worst time ever,” one sign read.

“Will the displacement of one third of the Lebanese people go without consequences?” another read.

In 2014, Parliament endorsed a rent law that enacted gradual increases in the value of residential lease contracts signed before 1992.

It stipulated the termination of all rent contracts signed before 1993 within nine years after the law was endorsed.

MPs further amended the law on Jan. 19, in a move that would allow tenants with low incomes to benefit from a subsidy fund.

The law will affect approximately 200,000 apartments – mostly in Beirut and its suburbs – which are leased under the old rent law.

These tenants pay rents often less than LL1 million ($667) a year and are protected from rent increases.

The new law will see their rents rise incrementally over the next six years until it reaches 4 percent of their home’s value.

It also gives landlords the right to take back a property after nine years without compensating tenants.

The tenants, who have been protesting to press lawmakers to back down on their decision, pleaded President Michel Aoun to repeal the act, which they called "a fire ball.