For God's sake!!! If the authorities really inserted the statement that "every Lebanese should kill a Palestinian" into the Cedar Guardian declaration just to create a premise to arrest them, then those who arrested them should be in jail! In fact, I would suspect that that is exactly what happened....
We always say: "ya it's okay to arrest them, look at what they did in the war!" But, whatever happened to "General Amnesty?" Besides, aren't all Lebanese pretending that the war didn't happen? So why should we pretend in some cases and remember in others?
Where are the human rights activists that called for the release of those who were arrested and tortured in Dinnieh? All those "brave souls" who staunchly stood against public opinion and asserted that those supposed religious fanatics in Dinnieh who got arrested without trial needed to be freed because they weren't afforded due process? If anyone of you "activists" is reading this, shame you for not even raising a finger in protest!
This is ridiculous! We friggen invited Omar Bakri to live in our country! I remember Jumblatt and Nayla Muawad (of all people) vociferously protesting against his detention after appearing on a Future television show even though there is hard evidence that shows he endorses terrorism (i.e. the murdering of innocent civilians just because they are of a certain nationality or believe in a certain religion).
If these guys aren't released soon, or taken to court where they can (or rather, ought to be able to) defend themselves, then I say: shame on "the new
A few days ago we were cheering Mehlis for trying to achieve justice and hoping that his activities would set a precedent. These next couple of days will be our first test. Just because I don't agree with what someone says doesn't mean that I have the right to arrest and torture him.
Friday, September 16, 2005
Free the Cedar Guardians!
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6 comments:
Your comments surprise me, but I agree.
My initial response to the re-chartering of the party was positive. If there's a crazy left-wing that is accepted(Baathi, Qawmy Surie), then there should be a crazy, wild eyed right wing. It resets the center, which is way skewed to the left.
However, hearing that they chose as their motto the war time slogan about killing Palestinians, I changed my view. That's just sick.
The main thing I did not understand, though, was why they would resurrect it? The Palestinians are not an issue any more by any means. Your assertion about it being planted seems logical. Now that creating political parties has become easy, they will be looking for ways to discredit new groups.
BTW, I think it would be pretty cool to learn Aramaic, Syriac, Hittite, Akkadian, and Phoenician. Don't the Guardians of the Cedars support that? They want us to discover our non-Arab heritage. Why not?
The Jews resurrected Hebrew. It was a dead language in 1900, but was revived. There are still people alive today who speak Syriac, which is much more than the written Hebrew that was still around in 1900.
Raja,
I think I'm lost. I want an explanation of who "the authorities" are. The CG's (sorry to the like-named blogger) say that the statement was planted by the authorities and their "proof" is that As-Safir was the only one to publish it. I don't think As-Safir is particularly that close to anyone in authority right now, so I’m more lost. I also think that this statement is the essence of any persecution’s legitimacy. If it’s true, then they should be persecuted. If it’s not, then let’s see who’s responsible. It’s important to refer to the said piece in As-Safir, which explicitly states that that statement was on the CD distributed during the press conference. This is good hard evidence. It is also worth noting that in today’s issue, they say the defendant’s attorneys produced as evidence a CD without those statements, while As-Safir has handed in the original CD.
Again if this is true, will we see some attorneys accused of faking evidence?
I also have another point which is that the arrest procedures were apparently illegal and very problematic, meaning no warrants, and too much "mokhabarat" style.
Hassan, my beef with the authorities is that they handled the matter in a "mukhabarat" style. Aren't the days of the "security services" over? I want due process. I want everybody's rights respected - whether or not I agree with their ideology. Why? Because if things don't change, I'm scared that one day, I might piss someone off and get thrown in jail just like that.
Vox, c'mon!!! Hang people because they're idiots?!?! The main judge that matters in these affairs is "the public". We all debate amongst each other. We have our beliefs and convictions. Our goal is primarily to convince the public because we know that we cannot convince each other. If the moderate voices in Lebanon, the ones that speak what you and I may agree is "sense," are not able to win the public over to their side with their rhetoric and actions, then my friend, the idiots deserve to win and do with the country as they please.
Assuming that the moderates always win these rhetorical battles by huge margins though, we can expect that fanatic idiots will give up trying to win over people to their side, and ultimately fade away. That is how we ought to deal with all of them.... Not hang them!!!
VOX,
but Palestinians for them are foreigners
Aren't they foreigners, by their (the Palestinians) own admission of wanting to go "home"?
I agree with Raja on due process.
One more point: extremists and extreme ideologies thrive when important issues are not addressed.
In Lebanon, we tried to ignore the Palestinian presence problem in mainstream politics, it showed up somewhere else in extremism and war.
In France, the mainstream pols ignored the immigration issue, they got LePen in the final round of election last time around.
It is a similar phenomenon. You ignore big problems at your own risk. If the mainstream people/system do not address an issue, something else will (usually bad).
Same-same: the Hezbo issue being swept under the rug now.
.PLO arms
The lunatic gardening mountaineers that go by the name of “Harath al-Arz” or whatever their ridiculous appellation might be these days are just HAPLESS CHRISTIAN STRAWMEN used by the Sa’adul-dînne police apparatus to launch the next phase of their Wahhabi-backed coup against our country.
Once they get rid of the last rusting remnants of the pro-Syrian Ancient Régime, faux sheikh Hariri Jr. and his fellow Saudi stooges seem to believe they’ll have a free hand to do as they like in Lebanon.
Earlier this month, bloodthirsty war criminal Waleed Jumblatt said the following on Future TV also known as “The Wahhabi propaganda conduit of choice” in the Qoraytem collaborationist milieu:
“Our beloved friend martyr sheikh Rafik Al-Hariri, may Allah have mercy upon him, single-handedly defeated the 1982 Israeli-Lebanese treaty that president Reagan and evil Christian collaborators such as Basheer Gemayyel tried to impose on our Ummah...” [sic/sick]
In fact Rafeeq Al-Hariri was only 32 at the time: he was living in Jeddah and wasn’t even remotely involved in Lebanese politics at the time...
Talk about anti-Lebanese historic revisionism on a MASSIVE scale!
Very frightening stuff anyway: at least Lebanon’s Christians and all authentic patriots are now officially warned about the Saudi-Druze lobby’s sinister intentions.
Yeah free these innocent freedom fighters now and put the Saray Palais thieves in jail instead
Roy Elkhoury
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