When I wrote a post yesterday morning on how to gear up for today’s protest, I never thought for a second that we might actually need to protect ourselves from tear gas canisters, water cannons, rubber bullets and live ammunition. I never imagined that the ISF and the Lebanese Army would attack the protesters this way and would storm a group of peaceful protesters, beat them up and arrest them. I haven’t slept all night following up on the news and checking on my friends to make sure they are all safe. To be honest, I think we are very lucky that no one died in the protests yesterday because things were totally out of control.
Protesters were unarmed and harmless civilians.
So what really happened?
I got to Riad el Solh around 6:20pm and walked all the way to the statue where protesters were chanting slogans and waving banners against the government. Things were relatively calm until the riot police started firing water cannons. People stepped back a bit and then all of a sudden tear gas canisters were fired in the middle of the crowds and one of them fell few meters away from me. I’ve never been tear gassed before and I hope I never do again because it’s the worst feeling ever. Your eyes start burning and you feel as if you’re suffocating. One protester got the tear gas right in his face and fainted for a second, while parents who had come with their children were panicking and running away from the gas.
At that time, I wasn’t aware what was happening near Annahar building but then we heard gun shots that were being fired in the air by the Lebanese Army as shown in many videos. At the same time, the riot police kept throwing more tear gas and started attacking the crowds and trying to disperse them all the way from Riad el Solh to Beirut Souks. Rubber bullets were used at this point. The clashes continued till around midnight when things calmed down and the police was ordered by our Interior Minister to free all the detainees. The protesters were pushed back outside Riad el Solh square but they resisted and decided to set up tents and spend the night there. I will not bore you with more details because the pictures and videos speak for themselves but I still can’t figure out what triggered all this mess, and who gave the order to fire at protesters but it’s outrageous and shocking.
Tear gas, Rubber bullets and live ammunition
Thousands of Lebanese men, women and children went down to protest for their most basic rights and for a clear and transparent solution to the garbage crisis away from politics and were all suppressed in an unnecessarily violent and disproportional way. Even the press was caught off-guard and got its share of the beating. I have no idea what to expect next but hopefully things will be clearer by next week. Whatever happened yesterday should NEVER be repeated and those who assaulted and fired at harmless protesters need to be reprimanded and this garbage crisis needs to be resolved once and for all in a transparent and efficient way.
Let’s see what comes next.
All pictures above were taken by my friend Jimmy Ghazal who got hit by a tear gas in the head but is ok.
via Gino
I watched the footage and it looks like the protesters are the ones who provoked the police.
They started pulling the barbed wire fence and advancing towards the Grand Serail.
Also, there number of wounded policemen outnumber that of civilians. So much for “peaceful protests”.
Granted, there was no need to use rubber bullets and live ammunition to disperse the protestesters. Water would have sufficed. But I’m sure the protest was hijacked by some troublemakers who caused the cops to react as such.
I advise you actually go see the pictures (propaganda) the ISF released.
The injured folk need acting lessons. And a little more fake blood, if they’re going to sell these injuries which conveniently never appeared to the camera.
35 wounded officers.
75 wounded civilians.
Footage shows protesters shouting at officers to move out of the way. No use of violence whatsoever. Then the officers go crazy and start hitting demonstrators with their sticks.
This is all wrong. BTW Kareem if the protesters are demanding the policy to move away; then they should? …and I want to know why did they have rocks with them and how so many ISF got wounded?
There should be plenty of blame to go around!
How did you convert what I said into that? They obviously weren’t going to open up the way. They were taking orders after all and would’ve lost their jobs had they actually moved out of the way.
However, the way they just started hitting the protestors for no reason is completely unacceptable. The protestors didn’t do anything to get bashed for it. They were simply shouting slogans, which is in no way whatsoever a reason to beat them up.
If someone is beating the crap out of you for no reason, would you just stand still or would you defend youself? Protestors were being shot with live ammunition for crying out loud.
If you look at the videos, you can even see ISF officers slipping while they were shooting the people with water cannons. It’s funny how they even managed to hurt themselves, assuming those people did actually get hurt.
How abt gas masks ?
“Things were relatively calm until the riot police started firing water cannons.” No, that’s not what happened, they fired the water cannons after people started throwing bottles and rocks at them. The eventual reaction from ISF was extreme, I’m not defending them, but they were initially provoked, and this should not have happened in a peaceful protest. There was no discipline in this protest, because the people who organized it were absent from the scene.
I read all of the replies, and i only wanted to say that i am with you i have the same opinion as you that the policemen were actually much provoked and for hours, by water bottles, Mecheyet :P, rocks and fireworks were thrown right at their feet. And violence can only be met by violence, there was a lot of riot and a lot of ill and undisciplined people that i saw came only to start a riot and fight, they had the intentions for violence. haram 3a yalli tol3it fi bel ghalat, bas it is actually our msitake for not doing anything about these people right here…
Sorry for the spelling mistakes :P, and again i jst wanted to point out that if it weren’t for the riot things would definitely ended up differently and no one would have been hurt, eno haram hatta ken fi babies with their moms, and old people and disabled people… It’s sad, i was even provoked to start a fight with someone from the people, eno i dk why they come down to fight with whomever or what?