Public anger in Lebanon is mounting a year after the August 4, 2020, Beirut blast, with a stalled investigation, crippling economic crisis and political sclerosis. Amid an increasing crackdown on dissent and freedom of expression, it’s a combustible mix for a country gripped with grief and outrage
France 24 reports.
The Saturday after the August 4, 2020, Beirut blast, Hussein El Achi and his fellow activists gathered at Martyr’s Square in the heart of the Lebanese capital to protest the government negligence that caused the deaths of more than 200 people when a stock of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate dumped in the port exploded.
They were joined by tens of thousands of people, still in a state of mourning and loss, demanding accountability for the latest crisis to hit Lebanon.
“We walked there thinking that after all of this – some of our closest friends had died in the explosion – that the security forces would not be brutal with us because this is our right, we were in mourning. But we were naïve,” recounted El Achi nearly a year later.
As protesters, in an outpouring of anger, began occupying ministry buildings and attempted to enter parliament, the security forces reacted with terrifying violence.
El Achi and his friends were part of an opposition movement that began in October 2019, when anti-government protests over Lebanon’s economic crisis erupted across the country. They were familiar with the use of batons, tear gas and rubber bullets by security forces. But they were not prepared for a new arsenal that wounded around 700 protesters, 158 of whom had to be hospitalized.
Security forces that day deployed bullets and projectiles packed with pellets that scattered upon impact, causing internal bleeding and organ damage in some serious cases, leading international human rights groups to condemn the “excessive and at times lethal force.”
