Tag Archives: Assault

Lebanese Policeman Physically Assaults a Woman For Stopping at a Red Light & Ends Up Innocent Anyway

The series of horrifying violations to our right as people from those who are in power in this wonderful country continues.

We’ve all been driving or in cars and suddenly find ourselves boxed in by a convoy for some politician who decides that his right of passage, as are the rest of his rights, more important than yours; who decides that your car and safety are irrelevant and who has no problem in killing you to make sure he gets his way, literally.

The mode of management for these convoys is to avoid them. You see those dark, tinted SUVs approaching and you run the opposite way. They are barbaric, lawless people who hold the rule of law in their hands: there’s nothing you can do just deal with it.

In fact, even the new driving law will NOT be applied to these convoys. Why? Because the government won’t apply a law on itself, but will screw you over again and again for your money so they can play house, not legislate, not vote for a president, not run the country and still take away your rights whenever they can.

Lawyer Rania Ghaith was stuck at a red light on Monday in front of one of those convoys at the Qantari intersection that leads up to Hamra. The convoy in question behind her was for our minister of internal affairs Mr. Nouhad el Machnouk.

 

The policeman at the intersection was telling Rania to run the red light and break the law so the convoy can pass. She stood her own and waited. When the light turned green, she let the convoy pass and would have been on her way hadn’t that policeman, who was NOT a traffic policeman and as such had no place to regulate traffic, pulled her over.

What happened next was not him simply writing her a ticket.

It was him pulling Rania out of her car, by her hair, and assaulting her physically in the middle of the street.

Unfortunately no one filmed the incidence but there were plenty of eyewitnesses. The physician’s report of Rania’s condition immediately following the incident also confirmed that she was the victim of a physical assault.

The ironic part is that the convoy was just a decoy.

This isn’t the full story, sadly.

Rania filed a lawsuit against the officer in question immediately, and the preliminary trial was today. In that trial, the overseeing judge in Military Court Hani Al-Hajjar did not, according to MTV:

  1. Ask for the physician’s report on Rania’s condition,
  2. Did not call for eyewitness testimony,
  3. Did not let Rania Ghaith testify.

As such, the judge decided that the man was innocent and could be released. He did not pay any bail, and the Lebanese Syndicate of Lawyers has not taken any steps in trying to defend the rights of one of their own.

 

Of course, this shouldn’t come as a shock in a country of no law, misogyny, and in the presence of people who think they are always above the law and who have no problem in making sure you know it at every single second of every day.

Not only was that policeman breaking the law by operating at that intersection, he also violated the law by assaulting a Lebanese citizen whose only fault was standing at a red light, respecting her country’s law at a time when he didn’t want that.

That policeman, whose name we unfortunately don’t know, violated Rania as a Lebanese, as a woman, as a citizen who respects the law, as a simple human being who should NOT be assaulted because the policeman had a testosterone rush because a woman defied him. And what’s worse, Lebanon’s military court – the same one that found Michel Samaha not *that* guilty – has now declared him innocent.

How long should Lebanese citizens, women and men, be the victims of the whims of policemen who know they have no reason to break our rights, our bones, our spine because they will get away with it anyway? How much proof do we need to get rid our streets of such elements that only serve to endanger us? What would have happened had that policeman been a bit angrier? Would he have shot Rania because she didn’t break a red light?

Does anyone even hear how silly it is to have a headline that goes: Policeman assaults woman because she stopped at a red light?

Let me take this a step further: how horrifying is it that this policeman not only assaulted that woman for not breaking the law, but has been declared innocent and is back on the streets, ready to attack other women, and other people on a whim?

Mr. Nouhad el Machnouk: You should not accept such a thing to pass by unnoticed. Your convoys, and those of every single politician in this country, are not more important than our well-being, than rights, our existence. You should not accept for Rania Ghaith to become yet another victim of abuse by those who are above the law, and who have the political backing to spit in her face during her trial: “If I were in my friend’s place, I would’ve torn you to pieces.”

This is not a country, this is a jungle.

Rania Ghaith, I hope you get your justice sooner rather than later.

How MP Nicolas Fattoush Proved The Irrelevance of Lebanese Citizens

Nicolas Fattouch

When it comes to Lebanon, there’s a lot of crazy that keeps going around. There must be something in the water. Scratch that. There’s no water for anything to be in it. So I assume it must be in the air.

A quick round on today’s quirky news reveals MTV’s twitter account getting hacked by pro-hezbollah goons who wanted to teach the anti-hezbollah network a lesson in resistance morals. Another round of crazy in Lebanon comes in the form of what I wrote yesterday, about guards in my hometown assaulting Syrians left and right, just because. But of course, as it is natural around this country, there would be something to steal the spotlight.

I swear, some things you just can’t make up.

The story goes as follows:

MP Nicolas Fattouch, of Zahle, known to be the one our government paid about 240 million dollars as compensation for shutting down his illegal quarries, was heading to the justice palace in order to file paperwork, I’m assuming yet another lawsuit.

The clerk there, a woman named Manale Daou, respectful and helpful as she is kindly asked the parliament member to wait for his turn. As it stands, Mr. Fattouch wouldn’t have it. “I am Nicolas Fattouch,” he said to her, “a member of the Lebanese parliament. I can’t wait.”

I guess some people are above the rules. Honestly, at this point I don’t know why any of us are even feigning shock, except the story gets better.

“Of course sir,” Manale Daou replied, “but everyone has their turn.” So naturally, Nicolas Fattouch proceeded to quietly stand in line and wait his turn like the other desperate citizens in front of him stuck in Lebanese bureaucracy  took out his hand and proceeded to punch Manale Daou in her throat. Because she told him to effectively take a number, like a regular Lebanese citizen, like you and I are supposed to do every single day.

The employees at the Justice Palace then intervened to get the MP off of Manale Daou’s neck. Fattouch’s bodyguards came to escort him out of the building, then LBC reported on it.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I’m sure many MPs, represented by Mr. Fattouch, view you as a Lebanese citizen: irrelevant, worthless, a nuisance, a hurdle, a throat ready to be punched, a voice ready to be squashed.

Other MPs are doing the latter by extending their mandate for a reported two years, yet again. They’re also suing people who dare speak up against their practices, using your tax money to drag you through a Lebanese circle of legal hell. Fattoush did the former, and will walk away unscathed, untouched, and possibly congratulated by his bodyguard, his people over in Zahle for being the epitome of Lebanese “roujoule,” not standing down to that pest at the Justice Palace. Women should know their place. Lebanese people should know their places.

In an ideal world, Manale Daou would be able to sue Mr. Fattouch for assault. And she would win. And she would throw him in jail for a few months, topped off with a hefty fine, which is only fair given the amount he was given out of our tax money for his illegal business’s demise.

In an ideal world, other MPs would stand against their comrade and denounce his behavior. Instead of calling for their next session to be about yet another renewal of parliamentary mandate, they’d call for a session to effectively strip Mr. Fattouch off of his diplomatic immunity, making him as vulnerable to the very fragile Lebanese law as people who aren’t immune are.

In an ideal world, what MP Fattouch did is considered political suicide. It’s an Anthony Weiner-level scandal, or even worse. At least the latter kept it digital. Mr. Fattouch would then never see the inside of parliament ever again, except on one of those tours that happen every now and then to show Lebanese citizens how beautiful the empty hall of that useless building is.

Enough with utopian paragraphs, I suppose. In corrupt, maimed, fragmented, despicable and fragmented Lebanon, there are varying degrees of inequality. There are those who are irrelevant, who view rules as something to make everyone’s lives easier, who think there’s a beauty to order and weep at its nonexistence over here, among other things. And there are those who are above standing in line, above the law, above being called corrupt and above facing repercussions for assaulting a woman in broad daylight, at her workplace, in front of her coworkers and leaving the scene without batting an eyelid. In today’s Lebanon, the only discourse pertaining to Fattouch will go as follows: Wayn yo? Just going about my day, bro.

You are irrelevant. Bask in the hopelessness.

Update: Manale Daou has reportedly apologized to MP Fattoush and a judge has reconciled the two. What a shame.

Lebanese Blogger Gets Assaulted In Beirut’s Downtown… For Taking A Picture

Habib Batah, a professor at LAU and blogger at The Beirut Report, got physically assaulted today by a bunch of henchmen at Downtown’s soon-to-be-constructed District S… because he dared take a picture of the ancient ruin inside the property which they were busy dismantling.

After being forced to delete the pictures off his phone, Habib tried to complain to Lebanon’s police who dismissed him with their typical “nothing to see here.” Again, we’re only paying our police so they can have Malek el Tawou2 for lunch or dinner. Protecting us or trying to keep our rights, the simplest of which is us being able to take a damn picture at a construction site of our heritage, is just too mainstream to be included under their umbrella of duties.

You can read the full story here (link).

In this occasion, I believe a series of thank yous are in order.

  • Thank you Solidere for your beautiful work in Downtown Beirut. It’s perfectly understandable that ancient ruins aren’t business-centric. The Khalijis sure don’t like them. 
  • Thank you Lebanon’s Ministry of Culture. Your continuous efforts in making sure there’s nothing about this country’s history that  isn’t history are much appreciated.
  • Thank you Lebanon’s Ministry of Interior. You’re just too busy not looking at those self-enforced anti-Syrian curfews and not working on elections for you to get your police to do their job.
  • Thank you Lebanon’s police. I feel safer every single day you tell me to “forget it.”
  • Thank you to every single entity in this God-forsaken country that makes me hopeful and happy and content into what I’m being offered every single freaking day.

How much more shit are we supposed to take before someone out there decides to do their bloody job? How many more people need to be assaulted because they tried to stand up to their constitutionally-given rights? How many more of our rights are we supposed to forsake because of well-connected people everywhere? How many people need to become victims before someone out there wakes up and realizes that this – all of it – is downright unacceptable?