A sit-in against violations against journalists (2020). Photo: Masar Badil/File photo.
The Tariq al-Tahrir Network, the youth and student arm of the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement (Masar Badil), condemned Lebanon’s new media law, saying that Article 63 imposes discrimination against Palestinian journalists by requiring the “responsible director” of electronic media outlets to be a Lebanese citizen, thereby preventing Palestinians from assuming this role.
In a statement published in English on its website, the network said that the law compounds the restrictions imposed on Palestinians in Lebanon, affects Palestinian journalists and students studying media, and limits the presence of the Palestinian narrative.
The network also criticized what it described as policies of isolation and marginalization targeting the Palestinian refugee camps, and called for the defense of Palestinian refugees’ human, civil, and political rights, their dignity, and their right to return.
The statement criticized the U.S. Embassy in Beirut’s endorsement of the law, calling on Lebanese national forces to defend Lebanon’s sovereignty and reject foreign interference.
The network affirmed that the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon will remain an integral part of the Palestinian cause, and that Palestinian youth will continue to defend their people’s identity, their rights, and their right to return.
Statements:
The Tariq El-Tahrir Youth and Student Network condemns in the strongest terms the new media law recently passed by the Lebanese state, which further restricts the rights of Palestinians living in exile within its borders.
Article 63 will be used to discriminate against Palestinian journalists by requiring that every electronic media site appoint a responsible director who is a Lebanese citizen, and bars Palestinians completely from fulfilling that role. This, in addition to already existing restrictions, further limits the reach of the Palestinian narrative in Lebanon, while Lebanese media already demonizes the refugee camps and few channels publish sympathetically to the Palestinian cause. It also directly affects the livelihood of Palestinian journalists and Palestinian students studying media in Lebanon. Lebanon holds a reputation as the media capital of the Arab world but continues to escalate exclusion of Palestinians.
This is a particularly shameful escalation as it comes amid the ongoing US-Zionist aggression against the South of Lebanon, the occupied West Bank, and besieged and steadfast Gaza. As the enemy continues its daily attacks on Lebanese territory– slaughtering families, destroying villages, carrying out violent assassinations, bombardment and violations of sovereignty– the Lebanese authorities continue to make concessions and collaborate with the zionist entity and the United States. They have abandoned their people, especially those from the South, to compromise with an entity that seeks to occupy the land, impose new political realities, and even manufacture a civil war in Lebanon through threats, siege, and intimidation.
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Palestinian refugees in Lebanon face a comprehensive racist policy of isolation and impoverishment. The Lebanese state aims to turn the camps from centers of resistance, culture, and political life into ghettos. With the addition of journalism, Palestinians in Lebanon are currently barred from working in 73 professions; they are banned from owning property, and demonized in the media, among other increasingly urgent issues. Condemning attacks on all fronts against the camps and the human, civil, and political rights and dignity of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon continues to be imperative.
We note that the US embassy in Beirut published a statement approving of the media law, a blatant interference in Lebanon’s internal that only further exposes the role of US imperialism in suppressing the rights of the Palestinian people, wherever they are. We call upon all truly nationalist Lebanese forces to defend Lebanon’s sovereignty in the face of this hegemonic intervention, targeting both the Lebanese and Palestinian people.
Despite the ongoing attempts to isolate and destroy them the camps of Lebanon and their steadfast inhabitants remain the beating heart of the Palestinian cause. The role of the youth as shown in their readiness to engage in action, and their dignified rage, is an expression of the shared blood and shared destiny between the sons and daughters of the diaspora and the people of Gaza, the West Bank, and all places where Palestinians reside. As the Palestinian journalist based in Lebanon Khaled Barkat states, to determine whether one is a true supporter of Palestine one must answer the question of “Where are you when it comes to the camps?”
