UN special rapporteur urged to visit Lebanon

Reporters Without Borders wrote today to Ambeyi Ligabo, the UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, asking him to go to Lebanon with a view to creating “a special international commission of enquiry into all the bombings that have targeted politicians and journalists.” The organisation also urged Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora to issue an official invitation to Ligabo, stressing that a visit by the special rapporteur “would send a strong signal of the international community's commitment to do everything possible to rein in this series of killings in which journalists have been among the targets.” Voicing “deep concern about the growing number of targeted attacks on the press since the start of this year,” Reporters Without Borders said it wanted to draw the international community's attention to the plight of Lebanon's journalists, who have to endure terrible security conditions. The organisation added that there was reason to fear that more journalists could be the victims of violence in the very near future. The most recent victim was Gebran Tueni, the CEO of the Arabic-language daily An-Nahar and a parliamentary representative for Beirut, who was killed by a car-bomb on 12 December. His murder, on the eve of the publication of a new interim report by the international commission of enquiry headed by Detlev Mehlis, was a flagrant provocation to the United Nations. Samir Kassir, a columnist for An-Nahar, was killed by a car-bomb on 2 June. Both were well-known and respected journalists who knew they were under threat ever since former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's assassination on 14 February. This year's other prominent press victim was May Chidiac, the star presenter of the Lebanese Broadcasting Corp (LBC), whose car blew up on 25 September in northeastern Beirut, resulting in her losing a leg and a hand, and “reinforcing the climate of terror for journalists now working in Lebanon,” Reporters Without Borders added.