LBC, MTV, Al Jadeed, Annahar, Nidaa Al Watan, L’Orient Lejour, Raseef22, Daraj, the Legal Agenda and other leading newspapers & media outlets in Lebanon issued a powerful joint statement yesterday condemning the “hate speech and incitement campaigns against sexual minorities, orchestrated by politicians and clerics looking for easy scapegoats.”

The statement started by the following:

“We reject the rhetoric of homophobia or homophobia and all the incitement and discriminatory rhetoric against sexual minorities, which extremist groups and some sectarian political, religious and security officials are trying to impose; We consider that this discriminatory, intimidating and displacing discourse harms the coexistence pact as long as it threatens people on the basis of their personal identities and thus strips any authority that engages in it of any legitimacy, pursuant to the Preamble to the Constitution.”

And ends by confirming that they will not stand on the sidelines in the battle for freedoms.

Here’s the full statement which I endorse fully.