(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to President Emile Lahoud, RSF protested the continued imprisonment of journalists Antoine Bassil and Habib Younis. The organisation asked him to intervene personally so that the journalists are released. “We are very concerned about the fate of these two journalists. If found guilty of the charges weighing against them, they […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to President Emile Lahoud, RSF protested the continued imprisonment of journalists Antoine Bassil and Habib Younis. The organisation asked him to intervene personally so that the journalists are released. “We are very concerned about the fate of these two journalists. If found guilty of the charges weighing against them, they could be sentenced to anywhere from fifteen years’ imprisonment to the death penalty,” said Robert Ménard, the organisation’s secretary-general. “We are also very worried about recent lawsuits brought against the daily ‘An Nahar’. It is inadmissible that such practices exist in a country which congratulates itself on hosting the upcoming Francophonie Summit,” he added. RSF also recalled that it had earlier protested the two journalists’ arrest in a 21 August 2001 letter to President Lahoud.
According to information collected by RSF, Bassil, correspondant in Lebanon for the Saudi radio station MBC, was arrested on 16 August at his Ballouné home (north-east of Beirut) by two army intelligence services men in plainclothes. Younis, a senior editor at the Saudi daily “Al Hayat”‘s Lebanese bureau, was arrested at his home in Jbeil (north of Beirut) on 18 August by intelligence services men. Both men are accused of “contact with the enemy.” They face between fifteen years’ imprisonment and the death penalty if found guilty.
The two journalists’ homes were searched, particularly their libraries and their personal archives, and their passports were confiscated. According to Younis’s lawyer Boutros Harb, the journalist allegedly signed a full confession “through fear of violence and under constraint.” Younis’s wife said he was subjected to “psychological pressure.”
The two journalists’ arrests follow a series of raids undertaken between 5 and 8 August by army intelligence services against anti-Syrian Christian militias and sympathisers.
Moreover, the daily “An Nahar” has been charged with “defaming the army” because of a 9 August article about the Lebanese army and military service. A lawsuit has been brought against the article’s author, Raphi Madoyan, who was a candidate in the 2000 parliamentary elections, and Joseph Nasr, editor-in-chief of “An Nahar”.
