When did this take place? In 2009.
What happened? Comedian Edmon Haddad, who appears in the New TV show Chi.N.N, and Rawiya al-Shab were detained for a comedy show they did in Gemmayzé.
Why? Haddad apparently showed his underwear in the comedy show, as the above picture shows, and they auctioned off some of the men in the audience as a joke.
As a result of all of the above, a media outlet present at the event decided that this was a breach for public morality and reported the event in an article that was picked up by a judge who ordered the comedians to be detained based on the information in that article alone.
So dear judge, whose name is apparently forbidden from being circulated, let me ask you a few things:
1) How reliable and law-conformant is a judgement in which your only proof is something you read? How about we start using Al-Jaras as a reliable witness in Lebanon from now on?
2) What exactly is breaching public moral that we’re talking about? My public moral was not breached by a comedian showing a part of his underwear. I’m pretty sure the only one whose moral was violated at that event was the reporter. So if one person feeling violated is enough, this brings me back to…
3) How about you issue warrants against a dozen parliament members who breached my public moral by calling each other lewd words on national TV during three consecutive days?
4) How about you issue warrants for the MP and the head of a certain political party who threw chairs at each other on national TV and basically used every Lebanese curse word known to us?
At this rate, everyone whose underwear shows above their jeans’ line walking down the streets should be very careful. Some media outlet might write an article about how they feel offended by you and you might be detained. This makes the naked Ain el Mrayse guy’s act much more courageous than insane, don’t you think?
The comedian in question, Edmond Haddad, had the following to say on his YouTube channel:
A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares 
I just want to add that – and I quote Naharnet – “The comedy show was initially held in order to raise money for the Brave Heart Fund on the occasion of Christmas in 2009. The Fund is a volunteer driven initiative benefitting children with congenital heart disease.”
It makes me laugh and cry at the same time… Such a shame really!! Great article by the way.
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I know. But I didn’t want to mention that in case someone thinks I’m using the fundraiser as an argument. This still applies in any case.
Thank you for reading 🙂
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Aha I see, good point!! And believe me, even without the fundraising fact, I don’t think anyone would ever find any logic in what happened, I just can’t understand how the judge can take such a decision…
Breaching public morality!! Did they even leave us such thing in our dear Lebanon at the first place?
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Well, it might be against the law. In which case, perhaps the sentence isn’t “wrong.” What’s wrong is having that sentence based on an article and nothing else. And what’s wrong is when there are countless other examples of politicians basically doing worse on TV and no one caring.
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Exactly, it either applies on everything or it doesn’t. But when it comes to laws, sentences and judgments everything gets mixed up in Lebanon, no obvious rules or standards
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Well let’s start with it being applied first. I’m not sure exactly how against the law what they did is. I mean, many guys have boxers that show and they’re not detained. But when it comes to this precise thing, I can think of many other people who have done way worse and very recently too, not in 2009. Besides, 3 years later – who reminded the judge?
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Wierd isn’t it…
By the way check the man in question, Edmond Haddad’s reply if you haven’t yet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEI7FubxPfE
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Thanks for letting me know. I’ll add it to the post.
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