Freedom of suppression: Fears for press freedom if alleged Hezbollah attack blows over

[Originally posted at NOW Lebanon]

The release on bail Wednesday of a jailed Lebanese-Palestinian journalist may herald the end of what a local watchdog described as one of the worst violations of press freedom of its kind in Lebanon for years.

Rami Aysha, who has freelanced for international publications including Time, was reportedly investigating an arms smuggling story in Beirut’s southern suburbs on August 30 when he was detained and then imprisoned for almost a month without charge. Though an initial report by Al-Manar television station said Aysha was arrested by army intelligence, a letter received by the Committee to Protect Journalists by concerned colleagues alleged the arrest was in fact carried out by members of Hezbollah, which has a strong presence in the southern suburbs. The letter further alleged that Aysha was “severely beaten” by Hezbollah members, who inflicted on him two black eyes – an account corroborated by Aysha’s brother Ramzi, who visited him in a Byblos prison and reported that he had a broken finger and had been beaten on the head with his own camera. Al-Manar is run by Hezbollah, the press office of which could not be reached for comment.

It took almost three weeks for an official charge to be made against Aysha. On September 19, his lawyer, Saliba al-Hajj, informed the Samir Kassir Eyes (SKEyes) Center for Media and Cultural Freedom that Aysha was accused of attempting to smuggle arms himself – a charge both Hajj and Ramzi Aysha denied when contacted by NOW Lebanon.

Ayman Mhanna, SKEyes’ executive director, told NOW Lebanon that a serious violation has occurred either way. “If Aysha was arrested because of his work as a journalist, then his arrest was totally unacceptable and totally illegal, because there is absolutely nothing in Lebanese law that justifies this. And even if he was arrested for other reasons, what his brother and lawyer said about his beating is also totally unacceptable, and we demand an official, public and transparent investigation and trial of those responsible.”

Lawyer and constitutional expert Marwan Sakr agrees, though he cautions that the legal question hinges on the charges raised against Aysha. “A journalist cannot be arrested for simply doing his job, though he can be sued, let’s say, for defamation. In Lebanese law we have something called ‘crimes by publication,’ but again, one cannot be arrested for these,” he told NOW.

“If, however, a journalist is caught committing a crime – carrying out intelligence work for Israel, for example – then of course he can be arrested,” he added.

Should the charges against Aysha prove false, Sakr says he would have several courses of legal action available to him. “If he has been arrested beyond the normal period of arrest according to the law, he could sue for illegal detention. And if he has been subject to false charges by a third party, then he can sue also for false claims. But this would have to wait until the end of the trial, if there is one.”

However, neither Aysha nor his lawyer appears willing to pursue such a course of action. “Even though we feel that no one has the right to arrest Rami but the Lebanese state, what happened, happened. Unless something new comes up, we will not do anything,” Ramzi Aysha said.

“What can we do against the army and Hezbollah?” asked Hajj rhetorically. “All that we can do in this country is pray.”

Accordingly, Mhanna believes Aysha’s case will have detrimental consequences for press freedom in Lebanon. “Though we at SKEyes have witnessed and reported dozens of violations of press freedom in recent years, there has been nothing as severe as this for at least two years,” he said. “We are shocked that we all had to wait for two weeks before this issue became slightly public, and it’s still not getting the public and media attention it deserves. The idea of arresting a journalist during the course of his work and resorting to physical aggression, regardless of any charge, is unacceptable. And the practice of holding someone for a long time without charges is another thing that needs to stop in Lebanon.”

The case also shines a spotlight on Hezbollah, a party with a history of obstructing press freedom in areas under its control. “Last year we reported at least five cases of journalists being detained by Hezbollah and having their photos deleted and so on, all of which we documented in our Annual Report on Press and Cultural Freedom,” said Mhanna. Indeed, NOW Lebanon has in the past had notes confiscated and been prevented from reporting by Hezbollah members in the southern suburbs.

That such behavior may now be escalating into physical attacks on journalists sets a worrying precedent for press freedom, says Mhanna. “Hezbollah members are in no position to conduct any arrests of any citizens, let alone journalists, and let alone beating them in the process. If we open this Pandora’s Box, then all parties will start conducting these arrests.

“We’ll be back to the law of the jungle.”

Luna Safwan contributed reporting.

The counter-Islamist: Talking to Maajid Nawaz

[Originally posted at NOW Lebanon]

Maajid Nawaz is not your typical democracy activist. For more than 12 years, he was a member of the UK branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a hardline Islamist party that calls for a global Islamic state that would invade and conquer infidel nations, forcibly veil women, and stone apostates and adulterers to death. After serving the cause in Pakistan and Palestine, he was incarcerated for five years in Egypt, where he began to question the ideology.

Upon returning to London, he abandoned Islamism and started the Quilliam Foundation, a think tank countering extremism and promoting liberal democracy, named after the first Englishman to build a mosque in Great Britain. NOW Lebanon spoke to Nawaz, who has just released a memoir, Radical: My Journey From Islamist Extremism to a Democratic Awakening.

The first half of your book tells the story of your transition in the 1990s from an essentially secular, girl-chasing hip-hop fan to a Hizb ut-Tahrir zealot. How did that happen?

Nawaz: The journey involved me suffering from a severe level of violent racism in Essex [in England]; both on the street from groups like Combat 18 and at the institutional level. In those days before the murder of Stephen Lawrence [in 1993], the level of racism in the British establishment was quite entrenched. That led me to feel very disenfranchised from society.

On top of that there was Bosnia unfolding right before our eyes. A few countries away, on the European continent, there was a genocide committed against Muslims. These combined to produce an acute identity crisis within me, which is where these ideological groups step in and push solutions that are black-and-white, which to a teenage mind can seem to make a lot of sense.

You spent five years in prison in Egypt in the 2000s, during which you began to have serious doubts about Islamist ideology. What made you change your mind?

Nawaz: There were two main factors, although I must emphasize it was a process, it wasn’t a sudden light-bulb moment.

First, Amnesty International adopted me as a prisoner of conscience. I saw people fighting for justice on my behalf who weren’t Muslims, and that had a profound impact on me.

Second were the discussions I had in prison with the “Who’s Who” of political prisoners, from the assassins of Anwar Sadat through the entire Islamist spectrum to liberal political prisoners.

After leaving Hizb ut-Tahrir, you co-founded the Quilliam Foundation, which aims to counter extremist ideology and promote democratic pluralism. How, in practical terms, can that be done?

Nawaz: There’s a grass-roots approach and a policy approach, as I described in my TED talk. We work on both sides. Governments have a role—for instance in choosing their partners and interlocutors—who they engage with. They have to make sure they aren’t unwittingly encouraging extremism. Media, too, have a role to be sure [in making sure] they are not furthering the Islamist narrative through their reporting.

On the other end we try to build up a grass-roots allegiance for democratic values in countries such as Pakistan. To directly compete with groups such as Jamaat-e-Islami and Lashkar-e-Taiba who are working to recruit young Pakistanis. That is a long-term solution. The Muslim Brotherhood was established in 1928 and it took them until 2012 to win elections in Egypt. You have to start somewhere.

You’ve founded a similar organization, Khudi, in Pakistan. What sort of obstacles do you face there?

Nawaz: Security is a big one. We’re talking about an environment where “secularism” has become an insult and a swear word; where democracy is viewed with suspicion and a synonym for corruption. An environment where people are killed by mobs upon the mere accusation of blasphemy. So we have to be very careful what we say and how we say it. But there are large chunks of the country, especially the youth, who are increasingly disillusioned with the status quo and are turning to our organization.

Turning to the Arab Spring, as someone who was tortured by President Mubarak’s infamous state security, what did the Egyptian revolution mean to you?

Nawaz: It was a cathartic moment, because the ideas of non-violent uprising that led to Tahrir Square were the sort of ideas that were being debated by us in prison all those years before. And in fact some of those involved in starting the intellectual input were my cell-mates—people like Professor Saad Eddin Ibrahim, the famous Egyptian sociologist, and Ayman Nour. So it was a vindication, especially because Mubarak is now in the very same prison we were.

Have the recent electoral victories of Islamists in Egypt and Tunisia been a disappointment to you?

Nawaz: Not really; they were expected. What’s more important in these countries is to have what I call a democratic trinity in place: a firm entrenchment of democratic values, democratic institutions and the democratic process. If those three can be rooted in society it’s more important than any one party or who wins the election.

In “Radical” you write that “If the West […] had intervened earlier and harder” in Bosnia, it might have limited “the spread of Islamism and [Hizb ut-Tahrir].” Does this suggest a reason to intervene in Syria?

Nawaz: It suggested a reason for Libya, because Libya was a very uncontroversial and legal intervention. The problem with Syria is we have to try and be consistent. As Muslims, sometimes we like to have our cake and eat it too. So when we disagreed with the Iraq war, we were the first to shout that this was an illegal intervention and it was Western colonialism, and yet in Syria we are frustrated that intervention hasn’t been possible. I am frustrated about that. The problem without a coalition is that now if states do intervene, it gives other governments like Iran and Russia the perfect excuse to say, “Well this is illegal, we’re backing the Syrian regime.” And that leads to a potential regional war between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

I’m sure a lot more can and must be done to help the rebels, but I’m saying it’s simply not analogous to Libya or Bosnia. It’s very complicated—Lebanon is there and suffering from sectarian fallout—so it’s one of these ones that’s genuinely stumped me, because I’m very keen to see the back of the Assads, but I’m not very keen to further entrench Iran, Hezbollah and Russia in the region. I don’t think anyone really has a solution to this.

Do you worry that just as Bosnia turned you to Islamism, today some young Muslims are doing the same because of Syria?

Nawaz: Of course, absolutely. In fact we know that a minority of the fighters in Syria are foreign jihadists. However, I think that those groups would capitalize on it with or without intervention.

Turning to Lebanon, your former Hizb ut-Tahrir leader, Omar Bakri Muhammad, currently resides here. Do you think the Lebanese government should ban him and other Salafist-Jihadists from the country, as the UK has done?

Nawaz: I have absolutely no doubt that he’s involved in ratcheting up sectarianism in the Syrian conflict right now. But he’s a Syrian national, so I don’t think it’s possible to extradite him at the moment.

In general we have to distinguish between extremist thought and calling for violence. Hizb ut-Tahrir is not banned in the UK, and I’ve argued for them to remain legal, while organizations like al-Muhajiroun, which was Omar Bakri’s in London, are banned and I’ve argued for them to be banned. The distinction I make is that groups that directly call for terrorism need to be outlawed, whereas groups that call for extremist thought need to be challenged by civil society.

Finally, might you ever consider extending your activism to Lebanon?

Nawaz: I would love to, but capacity is one of the issues. We are working very hard to build up and expand the Khudi model into other countries. We’ve already started training people in three other countries. It’s a matter of time.

Piety and politics in the Dahiyeh

[Originally posted at NOW Lebanon, with Luna Safwan]

One didn’t need to be told where to find Monday night’s rally in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Long before we reached the arterial Hadi Hassan Nasrallah Street, we saw them: the men, women and children in their tens of thousands, swarming in a single mass through the alleys and sidestreets like a tidal wave washing ashore.

And we heard them. “Libayka ya rasool Allah!” roared a voice several blocks away (the phrase roughly translates as “We’re at your service, Messenger of God!”). Once on the ground in the midst of the marching crowd, we saw the source of the noise: dozens of men on platforms, spaced every few hundred meters apart, reading chants from a prepared sheet through a gigantic set of loudspeakers. “Death to America, death to Israel!” came next, followed by “America, America, you are the greatest Satan!”

So large was the procession – spanning several kilometers and snaking around right-angles – that when Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s voice first sounded, nobody around us realized he was speaking in person from a stage up ahead. They assumed they were listening to a video transmission. For those witnessing the moment of his appearance, of course, it was a different story entirely.

Demonstrators, who did not give their names, offered discrepant reasons for turning up when interviewed by NOW Lebanon, ranging from simple offence at the “Innocence of Muslims” film that has sparked outrage around the Muslim world, to a wish to show defiance against what they see (and what Nasrallah described on Sunday) as an American-Israeli plot against them.

“We are here because a movie insulting Prophet Muhammad is out,” said a man in his early twenties. “We want to send the message to the world that we are here to defend the prophet. We hope for the movie to be banned for the sake of respect for religion.”

“We came to this protest to defend Prophet Muhammad, and also to show Israel that we are here and that we won’t keep quiet,” said a woman of around eighteen. “The movie should be taken down.”

“I came because Sayyed Hassan requested us to come, also out of respect for Prophet Muhammad,” said a man in his fifties. “America should lay off our back. This movie has to be taken down, otherwise things might escalate.”

That refrain was echoed by a woman of around thirty, who told NOW that, “It is requested of every Muslim to participate for this is an insult to Islam. We hope that they take the movie down because if they don’t, something else might happen, something bigger.”

Indeed, in his speech Nasrallah warned that “America, which is objecting and deceiving [others] under [the pretext] of freedom, needs to understand that the complete broadcast of the film will yield very dangerous repercussions.”

Ali al-Amin, a prominent analyst of Lebanese Shiite politics, believes that this threat is essentially empty, being in reality a counter to the violent reaction of the Sunni community. It was “part of the general political rhetoric [in Lebanon],” he told NOW. “The Shiite street seemed as if it were not reacting to the film” as much as its Sunni counterpart, and thus Hezbollah sought to one-up their rivals by “taking stances embellished with threats.”

Amin argues that the demonstration in general was a means of deflecting attention from the ongoing killings in Syria – a view shared by veteran Lebanese blogger Mustapha Hamoui. For Hezbollah, the film arrived “on a silver platter,” said Amin. “Previously, Hezbollah used to take a defensive position, e.g. when justifying the Syria issue. This time, Hezbollah was not required to talk about Syria.” All the same, a number of demonstrators chose to assert a pro-Syrian government stance, waving the red, white and black national flag as well as posters of President Bashar al-Assad.

The calls for “death” notwithstanding, the rally was comparatively civil overall. Unlike other protests against the film in such countries as Libya, Afghanistan and Pakistan, there was no burning of flags or effigies, and no violence (though two people were reportedly wounded by celebratory gunfire).

However, it remains to be seen what may unfold if the full film is made public. As NOW was leaving the rally, a bespectacled man in his forties approached, speaking a mixture of English and French. “I don’t care about the filmmaker,” he said. “God will give him his own punishment. Listen, Hassan Nasrallah is not a bad guy. Muslims are not bad. We’re not going to attack you first.”

“But if you attack us, we’re going to attack you back.”

Noam Raydan contributed reporting.

On attending the Pope's Mass

Pope Benedict XVI wields a stick (Alex Rowell)

I’ll say this much for Joseph Ratzinger: no one could accuse him of over-emotive speechmaking. With his barely-audible lethargic croak, rising infrequently and with great strain to a mumble, there is little danger of him whipping a crowd into a frenzy of bloodlust or vengeance. He would, indeed, be incapable of holding an audience of any kind were it not for his claim to be the quasi-divine “vicar” of Christ on earth, with the “infallibility”, “supreme authority” and other special powers that that heady title entails.

Having reached the waterfront venue in central Beirut a full hour before the Popemobile arrived, and having outlasted many a devout Catholic and hardened journalist in staying till the very end under the roasting sun, I think I can fairly claim to have given my first Mass my best shot. Much as when I visited Jerusalem, I went into the experience with an open mind; willing to be taken wherever my emotions moved me. Ignore, to the extent possible, the unspeakable crimes in which the man is complicit, I told myself. Perhaps seeing him live in the flesh, I speculated, would induce some stirring within me, however slight, of the awe, or contentment, or “agape”, or whatever exactly it is that the faithful get out of these things. Even Larkin admitted to an “awkward reverence”, after all.

And yet, here as in the Old City, precisely the opposite turned out to be the case. Once again it squarely struck me that personal exposure to “holiness” only confirms its essential banality. Just as the Western Wall is really just a wall, and the Stone of the Anointing is really just a stone, so a mediocre man in a hat and costume is really just a mediocre man. Non-Catholics already know this, of course, but as the minutes became hours and the postures succumbed to gravity, I wondered how many of “the flock” were privately beginning to suspect it too. Indeed, when the chairs began to empty by the hundreds while the Baba was still on the mic, I might have even felt a twinge of pity for the geriatric if I didn’t remember what infamous villainy he was capable of.

Not that I intend to go into any of that now, nauseating as it was to see a quarter of a million people cheering a paedophile-enabler (in case you’re interested, the authoritative account of Ratzinger’s widely-underestimated role in these crimes against humanity is human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC’s ‘The Case of the Pope: Vatican Accountability for Human Rights Abuse’). My point, as I was saying – which is one I’ve known since childhood, just as every child in the crowd yesterday knew, as did most of the adults if they only had the honesty to admit it to themselves – is that religion is desperately, unrescuably dull.

It might seem like a frivolous criticism, but it’s enough by itself to discredit the whole enterprise. Take humour alone, or rather the lack thereof. As the philosopher Alfred Whitehead pointed out, “The total absence of humour from the Bible is one of the most singular things in all literature”. How can a book without laughter – that famously most efficacious of medicines; “the sunshine”, as Hugo put it, “that chases winter from the human face” – claim to give comfort to troubled souls, let alone pave the way to eternal bliss?  

Or, in the present case, how can God’s own incarnation fail to keep common mortals listening for a mere two hours? How could he be anything less than brilliantly, incomparably captivating? One might have expected the creator of the Universe to be a bit of a personality. (One might also have expected him to be a bit kinder with the weather – I counted no fewer than four limp bodies carried away on stretchers.)

In short, if yesterday were any indication of what the party’s like up in heaven, it underscored once again why most atheists are happy enough to be excluded. 

Making a film is not a crime. Period.

[Originally posted at NOW Lebanon]

To say that surveying the media over the past few days has been a distressing task doesn’t quite cut it. Nor has it merely been irritating or fatiguing, though it certainly has been those in abundance. No, above all the experience has been comprehensively, piercingly dispiriting: “depriv[ing] of spirit, hope, enthusiasm, etc.; [to] depress; discourage; dishearten,” as Dictionary.com so ably defines it.

I’m talking, of course, about the abject surrender of the so-called “civilized world” to hysterical, mediaeval barbarism. Eight years after the broad-daylight murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh by an Islamic fascist, not one Western official has been able to condemn Tuesday’s killing of a US ambassador and three of his staff by Islamic fascists without hastily adding an accompanying condemnation of… a YouTube video. President Obama was eloquent in vowing that “no acts of terror will ever [...] eclipse the light of the values that we stand for,” but this was directly at odds with his earlier coded apology to the murderers, where he affirmed that “we reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.”

Nor were columnists any better. In a particularly appalling Guardian example, Andrew Brown said the “blasphemous” film “offends against the central values of liberal democracy” and ought to be “banned” and have its “distributors prosecuted” (a position that puts Mr. Brown in the company of Ayatollah Khamenei, who demanded that the US government “punish those who committed this heinous crime”). Elsewhere, the best that many were able to come up with was that the embassy attack was “un-Islamic,” chillingly suggesting things would be different it if it wereIslamic.

I don’t care who made the film, who paid for it, or what it contains. Unless we’re to simply give up on liberty and the Enlightenment, this prostration has to stop right now. Unless our culture is forever to be held hostage to the veto of injured feelings, then the following ground rules need to be plainly articulated: You can say whatever you want about the Prophet Muhammad. You can do the same about the Pope, Jesus, Moses, Mithras, Buddha, Brahma and Zeus. No ifs. No buts. No apologies.

Making a film is not a crime.

Safe and sound? What ending the Moqdad affair means for Lebanon and the region

[Originally posted at NOW Lebanon]

The images of freed Turkish abductee Aydin Tufan Tekin reuniting with his family on Turkish soil Wednesday morning offered a happy ending to a month-long drama that pitted the Lebanese state against an obscure tribal militia.

Along with 20 Syrian nationals, Tekin was kidnapped in mid-August by the so-called “military wing” of the Moqdads, a Shiite clan based in Beirut’s southern suburbs, also known as “Dahiyeh”. His release was secured on Tuesday night following a series of raids on Moqdad locations by the Lebanese army on Tuesday and Friday. Despite claims by the Moqdads on Tuesday that Tekin was in critical condition after being shot in the chest and shoulder, he appeared unharmed on Wednesday and indeed said he had heard no gunfire during Tuesday’s raid. The Syrian captives were also freed.

The apparent assertion of state authority over turf ordinarily considered a stronghold of Hezbollah raises the question of whether a fundamental shift in the country’s balance of powers is underway. Some Lebanese seem to think so – “Weather is changing on our Republic,” tweeted the Tajaddod Youth party account on Saturday. Others were more cynical. “Am I supposed to believe we suddenly have a state? Give me a break,” wrote the author of the Lebanon Spring blog.

The latter sentiment was echoed by the activist and Dahiyeh resident Lokman Slim, who told NOW Lebanon that, “As an eyewitness from Haret Hreik, when the army arrived with their tanks and Humvees it was for me all a kind of show. They couldn’t have done this without a certain understanding with Hezbollah. In general, all this enthusiasm shown by the army, whether in the Dahiyeh or in Naame where they arrested some people for inciting sectarian tension, is part of a big staging that does not guarantee the security of the country.”

On the other hand, retired Lebanese Army General Elias Hanna commended the army’s action, arguing that it was in the interests of both the state and Hezbollah to see the Moqdad issue resolved. “There are three factions within the Shiites: Hezbollah, Amal and the tribes,” he told NOW. “These tribes are usually out of Hezbollah’s control, and we have witnessed a lot of skirmishes between these factions in the past. Now what happened with the Moqdads was hurting Lebanon, hurting Hezbollah and hurting Amal. Moreover, they are like competitors, so I think that the army took a prior ‘OK’ from Hezbollah as well as maybe practical intelligence about these people’s whereabouts.”

Asked about other ostensible assertions of state authority, such as the arrest of former minister and close Syria ally Michel Samaha, as well as three Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) members, Hanna again said that acute disorder was in no one’s interest. “All the factions in Lebanon are trying to impose a certain level of stability. You can allow a certain degree of instability but only to the point where it doesn’t threaten or endanger the situation. What happened with Samaha was irrefutable. Nobody can say that ‘We are with Samaha.’ Everybody is embarrassed, including pro-Syrian elements. After all, he confessed what he did! So this explains the aggressiveness of the president concerning the sovereignty of Lebanon and so on,” referring to President Sleiman’s unprecedented stances vis-à-vis the Moqdads and on other issues.

Slim, however, is again unconvinced. “These are all part of the same logic. The Moqdad situation, the Makdissi Street situation [with the SSNP members], and the robbing of Samaha by his allies all belong in the same category. Nobody is stupid enough to believe the army can storm the Dahiyeh but cannot do the same in other regions of Lebanon. For the army to prove its seriousness, it has to be able to do the same everywhere, otherwise it is just either a passive observer or an accomplice.”

Lebanese considerations aside, at the international level, Tekin’s ordeal may have consequences for Turkey’s policy on Syria. According to Oytun Orhan, Middle East expert at the Ankara-based ORSAM think tank, the kidnapping led to widespread domestic condemnation of the Turkish government’s support for the Syrian opposition. “There was a lot of criticism within Turkish society because if you deal with the Syrian issue in this way – if you interfere in Syrian affairs, and arm and give safe haven to the Free Syrian Army in Hatay – then you will have these kind of negative implications in the region. Many Turks saw Tekin’s kidnapping as a natural result of our Syria policy,” he told NOW.

Orhan added that Lebanese-Turkish relations were never threatened by the Moqdad affair. “Turkey knew that this was something outside the control of the Lebanese government. Nobody considered this a factor which could deteriorate Turkish-Lebanese relations.”

“But, of course, solving the issue was beneficial for those.”

Class struggle: New school year leaves Syrian refugees stranded

[Originally posted at NOW Lebanon, with Assem Bazzi]

As we sit in a dusty, spartan classroom at the eastern edge of the Beqaa Valley, waiting to speak to Muhammad, the man looking after the hundreds of Syrian refugees housed in the school, a young woman bursts through his door in floods of tears. She wants to go back to Syria, she tells him, and hand herself over to President Bashar al-Assad’s forces. Her remaining brothers—the ones who haven’t already been killed—have been captured by the regime, and she’s come up with a plan to trade her freedom for their lives. Muhammad calmly refuses, reminding her that she has children here to look after.

It’s a sign of the despair taking over the refugees who have now been away from their homes in Damascus for over six weeks. Things have certainly changed since NOW Lebanon was last here in July. “Back then, there were between 200 and 300 families from Damascus in the area,” says Muhammad. “Now there are over 1,100, driven away by the ongoing killings and massacres. The numbers are increasing every five minutes.”

Though food and water are becoming scarce, the refugees have enough for now, says Muhammad. Sure enough, as we tour the hallways and classrooms, dodging the children running playfully around our knees, there do seem to be sufficient supplies of bread, water and ICRC cardboard boxes. No thanks to the Lebanese government, however: “We haven’t received any aid from the government, and are surviving solely on local donations and helpers,” says Muhammad.

Indeed, Fadi Yarak, director-general of the Ministry of Education, told NOW Lebanon that his department was no longer responsible for the refugees. “UNHCR takes care of them now,” he said.

In any case, the refugees’ most immediate concern is not aid but the impending start of the school year. This will force them to relocate once again—and they fear their next hosts may not be so benevolent.

“When school starts here on September 15, there will be no more room for the refugees,” says Muhammad. And it is here that sectarian considerations enter the picture. The refugees, being Sunni, have so far confined themselves to Sunni villages. “But there is no more room in Sunni schools anywhere. There are places in Shiite areas, such as Baalbek and Hermel, but the refugees don’t want to go. They’re afraid of being harmed or even kidnapped.”

Dana Sleiman, Public Information Associate for UNHCR in Lebanon, told NOW Lebanon that plans for supporting the refugees’ transition out of the schools were underway, but a request for further details was not answered at press time.

Accordingly, some refugees have already taken matters into their own hands. “I managed to find a home in Zahle,” says Omar, who has been in the school with his wife and children since July. A small dairy factory owner back in Damascus, he has also found part-time work as a blacksmith and mason in the Beqaa.

Others, however, are less fortunate. “I don’t have a clue what I’m going to do,” says Fatima, who breaks down in tears while telling us her story. “If I leave the school, I might lose contact with my relatives back in Syria.” She and her family are currently looking for a place to rent.

And accommodation isn’t the only worry for some. “My husband has a heart problem,” says Nour. “He’s currently being treated for free in a nearby hospital. I have to move out but I can’t leave him alone there.” Her children are still in Syria, apparently unable to cross the border.

Remarkably, despite their serious and mounting problems, the refugees constantly repeat how grateful they are to be in Lebanon. “We are so glad to be alive,” says Nour. “Every day we thank God for giving us another day of living.”

Some of the above names have been changed at the interviewees’ requests.