Each time I think MTV’s posse has hit rock bottom, they prove me wrong and dig even deeper. The Satanism fabricated news and “how to eat a banana with a fork and knife” TV station’s star host, did something that even I couldn’t fathom he’d be able to do.
Rabbat’s Descent into Cheap Thug
The MTV owner’s son is underage, but despite that, Rabbat takes him out clubbing regularly for some reason. However, one club wasn’t ok with underage kids going in, no matter who their dad is.
Rabbat’s first impulse was to take petty revenge, or at least try to, by telling a fake tip to the Tourism Police scouting the area. He went apeshit after his underage friend was denied entry, and told the police that his own underage friends are in that club right now, and that they should go into and fine the club.
The police followed up, and entered the sanctity of the club in their uniforms, something extreme and unacceptable in a country like Lebanon. They even wrote up the ticket, without a single underage person found. After being confronted with that, the tourism police had no choice but to void and tear up the ticket, given there was no evidence of anyone underage, and Pierre Rabbat was just trying to be a two-bit thug for the underage kid of the guy that pays his salary.
Kinda sad really. But it’s also extremely nice to see him fail so miserably and humiliate himself for trying to attack the clubbing scene in Lebanon, because a club was following the law, and didn’t want to let in his underage buddy in their wasta-driven mindset of breaking the law.
Pierre Rabbat and His Underage Friend Should be Fined
If the Tourism Police want us to have faith in their work and noble mission of fighting underage drinking again, they need to do more than just cancel the fine, they need to fine Pierre Rabbat and his underage BFF for wasting taxpayer’s money, the police’s time and trying to terrorize a club and its patrons for not doing a wasta for some spoiled brat and his 30-something friend.
I hope the Tourism minister takes the necessary measures to make sure the Tourism Police is never again manipulated by despicable people like Rabbat again, and forced to become something that hurts tourism for petty ego trips instead of protect this vital, embattled sector.
Also, I hope for once that the clubbing community comes together instead of bicker amongst themselves, and ban these two wannabe thugs from ever gracing a dancefloor in Beirut with their negative energy and pitiful, petty, downright thugish selves. No clubber should ever feel threatened by losers like this pair. They crossed a massive red line, and they should not be welcome in our clubs.
Let them stick to fabricating news and stealing people’s intellectual property for their twitter-bot-fueled rated-third-always “show”, and leave the men and women dancing their worries away in Lebanon’s clubs from their delusions of grandeur and thug-wannabe impulses.
Rabbat, you should be ashamed of yourself for what you did, and apologize publicly for this disgusting stunt you pulled. Grow up, and stop hanging out with underage kids at clubs.
It’s one of those things that inevitably happens almost every November, even though it’s an absolute disaster almost every year.
Independence Day Parade
November 22 is when Lebanon celebrates its Independence from the French Mandate. This year, it’s the 75th anniversary. However, this morning almost half a million cars were stuck in traffic as the large storm forecast for this week hit.
The reason is because the Lebanese Army wants to prepare and train for the military parade held for the occasion, that is closed off to the public and only our corrupt officials can attend. The parade happens in the Central District, next to the Port of Beirut entrance and all the way down to Beirut Souks.
The training is scheduled every morning on the following days: this Friday, Saturday and next Monday and Wednesday.
Why not on Tuesday you ask? Well, because it’s an official holiday. Which means training only on Monday and Friday rush hours, but not when people have no school or work? Makes perfect sense.
We Love our Army, but Solutions are Easy
Our collective anger and rage today is not aimed towards our Army, it never is. We know that our brave men and women in uniform are just following orders of our terrible elected officials. Please do not see this as criticism of the army that defeated ISIS and protects us day and night across the country.
However, this event isn’t for the army, it’s for our three presidents and their stooges to show off their new sun glasses as they pose for the camera and watch the military parade.
The price for doing this parade is massive, with thousands of work hours wasted, millions of dollars lost and let’s not forget all the urgent ambulance missions that our brave men and women of the Lebanese Red Cross can’t complete in time due to the traffic and drowning in flooded streets.
Do it Somewhere Else
A few times, the parade was held at the Military Academy’s stadium. Why not do it there always? Why do it in the heart of the city where all freeways terminate? Especially when none of us taxpayers are allowed to attend? Let our failure of a government take the shots they want reviewing our US-donated military equipment somewhere where the rest of us don’t need to be trapped for hours and days. Our thoughts are with a young woman who GAVE BIRTH in the hellish traffic, as many of us heard on the voice note circulated after a radio intervention on one of the morning talk shows.
The pregnant lady and her newborn weren’t the only ones to suffer today. Heated tempers led two drivers to get into a fight over the road rage, and one was stabbed as a result. No security forces showed up for the victim left lying on the street, only our heroes in red from the Lebanese Red Cross.
Enough Humiliation
Our country is worse than a pigsty. It’s stinky, dark, moist and slowly killing us off with the toxic fumes and garbage. We are humiliated a million times every day. Why humiliate us more for absolutely no good reason?
Street Flooded in front of the Interior Ministry this Morning
When I posted the stories of the traffic jam today, many followers replied that they wished we had never gained Independence from France. One even told me she canceled her ticket back home for Christmas. Is this what our government wants? Is that what they are trying to do to us?
We demand that the government rethink it’s decision to repeat this traffic jam for THREE MORE DAYS, including MONDAY morning. Feel with your constituents for once. Be decent human beings, just for once in your octogenarian lives. Just once.
This is somewhat of an open secret in environmental activist circles, but the fact it was recycling when we are all drowning in garbage made us all kind of turn a blind eye and hope for the best.
However, the antics of Recycle Beirut have become too much, and puts the greater struggle against the government’s horrible policies at risk, all for a private company’s struggle to make more profit off of Lebanon’s garbage woes.
For Profit
It’s not a crime to make money from projects that have a good stated purpose, but pretending you aren’t and treating it as a civil rights issue to rile up support based on unfounded claims preying on people’s frustration with the government, isn’t just unethical, it’s straight up manipulation.
String of Personal Attacks When Funding Falls Through
The only time Recycle Beirut slanders someone, is when they don’t give them the money they want for free. Who can forget the vicious campaign against the UN and EU, still visible on their pages, when funds for sustainable waste management and recycling went to several not-for-profits in it for the greater good, instead of Recycle Beirut.
It’s disgusting when someone asks for free money, to help their private business, and when they don’t get it, they attack not only the donors, but the local NGOs that were funded by them. For shame.
The Cornet Chehwan Lies
This morning was the last straw for me, when they posted this on their page before proceeding to block me after I called them out.
They blamed a municipality in upper Metn, for allegedly arresting their workers. They suggested that it’s because they criticized them on social media.
Here’s what happened here. The Cornet Chehwan municipality has been running its own recycling program since 2016. People sort in their homes, the municipality compresses and packages them, and sends them to recycling plant in a nearby town. Recycle Beirut wanted to profit from the fact residents in this town were sorting their garbage, and tried to replace the elected municipal authorities, in order to make profit, instead of letting the money go into the municipality and expanding the already functioning recycling program they had in place.
If Recycle Beirut’s mission isn’t making quick money, but recycling, why not go work in municipalities that aren’t recycling, instead of this absurd turf war they went into and went crazy when they weren’t allowed a cut of the cake as a private company instead of a local municipality.
They Lied About the Arrests
They claimed their workers were arrested because they criticized a municipality on social media. Turns out their employees papers weren’t up to date, and after that was sorted out, they were immediately released.
How low to use the arrest of undocumented workers, and their plight, and use it for your own purposes to try and smear someone that didn’t let you increase your profits. Next time make sure your workers are safe, instead of profit off their unjust arrest for your own greedy gains.
Don’t Use Noble Causes for Your Pockets Anymore
I hope Recyle Beirut become billionaires someday, but not on our backs. The lies and astro-turfing is disgusting. They are manipulating people with their lies, into thinking they’re supporting a just cause, when in reality, they’re just playing dirty games to make more money.
Plenty of Other Good, Ethical Recylcers in Lebanon
Recycle Beirut is just one group trying to make money, but plenty of others are doing much better work for no profit. Groups like Live Love Recyle, and many others. If you wanna recycle, go to them, and stop buying the lies of Recycle Beirut.
And for Recycle Beirut, the boy who cried wolf too many times, you can block whoever calls you out, but your time’s up, people know what kind of outfit you are, and the outbursts were cute at first, but now they’re just sad.
It’s a touchy subject that no one wants to talk about, but everyone thinks inside their head. Why should we, the taxpayers, be the one to the pay the price (literally and figuratively) for the “security concerns” of our politicians? Why should our taxes fund the uniformed bodyguard’s salary carrying around shopping bags for some big-shot’s wife’s shopping spree at Aishti in Downtown Beirut? Why should our neighborhoods be closed off and armed police and army suffocate our traffic, kill our businesses and make it an entire ordeal to just get into our homes with no electricity or water?
Not Our Problem
We can definitely sympathize with politicians worried about someone blowing them to smithereens. After all, most of them are warlords who did the same to others, so for sure they’re gonna be scared shitless that someone is gonna do that to them. But, how is it my problem? How is it yours? Why should a patient in an ambulance die because his highness doesn’t want to get stuck in traffic like we do every fucking day of our fucking lives in this cesspool of corruption?
You’re too afraid of the risk this job entails? Quit. Go on your vacations and never come back, but don’t put us through hell so you can drive around with your parade of uniformed gang-bangers yelling, beating and humiliating the people that pay your salaries.
It’s Not Security, It’s Vanity
If someone really wants to kill them, no matter how many roads they close and armored cars they make us pay for, they still will. This isn’t about security, it’s about prestige. How many motorcades do you see on an average day? Do they really expect us to believe that every mid-level politician is at risk and needs this much taxpayer-funded security?
It’s just another dick-measuring exercise. Who has more used, imported American SUVs to zip by you with brainless muscle-heads waving their submachine guns in your face to move, but don’t move for an ambulance transporting someone who needs help immediately.
It’s like everyone with tinted windows. Those are either to get blowjobs in private while in traffic, do drugs on your dashboard, or pretend like you have some status when all you did was grease the palms of whoever got you that “license”. They’re all symptoms of wanting to show off, when everyone knows all y’all are just flash without any real bang.
Catch the Criminals
If you’re all so worried about getting blown up, why hasn’t a single assassination been solved? Why have no culprits been brought to justice? Why are taxpayers the ones that pay the price for your ineptitude, or simple unwillingness to bring justice for crimes committed?
Catch the bad guys, and you won’t need to close down the entire city to shuttle between your useless lunch dates and photo opps while you waste the country’s time with petty bickering over who gets which slice of the corruption pie.
Pull Unnecessary Security Details
It’s amazing that when a wife is raped and murdered, we don’t have enough cops to act. But, if a za3im wants to go out for drinks, it’s like the alien invasion is upon us and there’s armed personnel every 5 meters “facilitating” traffic for the “VVVVIP”.
Stop using our cops and soldiers as road-closers and shopping bag carriers. Let them do their jobs, the ones we pay them for. I don’t want to pay a cop to carry some bimbo’s shopping bags. I don’t want to pay them to close the roads in front of ambulances either.
Many security details have been pulled, and a road next to where I live was finally opened after being closed for years for some idiot MPs and their relatives who live close by. Spoiler alert: they weren’t assassinated.
So, stop wasting our money and personnel on being bag carriers for your wives, and drivers of your spoiled brats to the school we pay the tuition for.
Pull ALL unnecessary “security” details and chauffeurs, and open all roads closed for “security” reasons.
Khlosna ba2a. You want to milk every last penny out of this country with your corruption and ineptitude, at least let our ambulances get to their destination, and our cops do what they should be doing: serving the community, not the scaredy-cat, obnoxious show-offs we call our leaders.
I’d hate to sound like a broken record, but MTV’s recurring insult to our intelligence doesn’t seem to be letting up.
It’s been well-documented that MTV prides itself on claiming it’s the number 1 TV station, even though it consistently ranks 3rd behind LBCI and Al Jadeed. They’ve been causing a fuss every time their ratings dip, like the whole “sharmoota” incident when MTV was outright cursing LBCI and calling women participating in a dating show “prostitutes”, all this because that show was crushing the ratings of their “Dancing with the Stars” show.
The Latest Chapter: IPSOS is Rigging Numbers
MTV aired this “report” last night. It claims that it has “evidence” that IPSOS is rigging ratings to benefit MTV competitors. The “evidence” they presented, is this cropped graph they showed:
It was based on a few minutes of outage on the Nilesat satellite. MTV considers their sinking to 0.2% (from about 3.8%) for a few minutes, while LBC’s dips considerably from almost 6% to just over 2.2%/. The MTV people thought that this means that the data is being rigged…
Given that this is the same channel that believes costume parties “satanic rituals” and “digital drugs” are an epidemic “affecting 200,000 people in Turkey”, it’s no surprise a detail so basic slipped their minds.
LBCI and LDC are two separate LBC feeds. LBCI is terrestrial, and LDC is via satellite (Nilesat). MTV is just on Nilesat. So, when weather conditions knocked the Nilesat feed off for a few minutes, MTV is definitely gonna dip close to 0%, since it only broadcasts via satellite. LBCI is part terrestrial, so that kept going, while the significant dip was the LDC satellite feed via Nilesat which went down just like MTV’s did.
That’s all the evidence they presented for that “report”. It’s kinda sad if you think how little they prepare their bluffs, given the authority and assumption of “criminal intent” when the reality is they just don’t know how to read a graph…
Why are they Doing This Now? Elections Season!
When MTV went crazy about the “sharmoota” stuff, the real reason wasn’t their sudden conversion to piety and humility in dresscode. It was that a lighthearted dating show was getting more viewers than their super expensive franchised show.
This time though, the reason is far more sinister. Elections in Lebanon are just a few months away, and the sad truth is that politicians pay top dollar to appear on talk shows on these stations. You would be priced a lot less if you’re third. Wouldn’t it be brilliant if you could dupe people into thinking you’re number 1? That’d be a lot of extra money, just ahead of the elections when politicians would have their chequebooks and pens at the ready.
For shame.
Why I Do This
You guys might think that it’s weird I go to such lengths to debunk and fact check the fake news MTV tries to peddle on unsuspecting viewers, and ultimately advertisers and politicians. The reason is because MTV is a mouthpiece of the intolerance and backwardness Lebanon needs to get over. They’re the people who start a smear campaign against some unknown taxpayer tweeting something silly, to put them in jail for a week. They’re the people who defame, shame and endanger communities they see as “undesirable” to their ultra-conservative base. They’re the reason you can’t have a psy-trance event in nature anymore without being arrested and smeared on TV. They’re the station that sides with a doctor being tried for malpractice, not the victim, a mother of two.
The misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia and stoking of sectarian fears as well as their unwillingness to correct false or factually inaccurate claims, are a threat to many of our ways of life. Why should a crooked TV station trying to jack prices for appearing on their shows decide what concerts and parties people can hold? Or what they can tweet or share with their friends, without being the targets of witch hunts that rob people of their freedom and dignity, so that MTV can try and get a bump in ratings?
As long as MTV is fighting against civil rights, equality and freedom of expression, I’ll always be here waiting to debunk their lies and counter their hate speech.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel gleeful at such ironic poetic justice… That the person heading the bureau that had summoned and arrested so many civilians, journalists, activists and bloggers for shares, retweets, likes and statuses, would be sacked from her job for “liking” a tweet about Saudi Arabian women being able to drive now.
However, past the initial “you deserve it” gut reaction, there are several worrying things about this case, which I will try to discuss below.
Saudi Arabia is a Topic You Can Be Fired for in Lebanon
It’s a bit sad that all the violations of the Cybercrime Bureau, didn’t cost anyone there their jobs, but a tweet seen as “insulting” to Saudi Arabia did the trick.
Where were her superiors when university students were lured to the offices under false pretenses, like “your phone is a stolen one” only to be arrested and thrown in jail for days and weeks over an article they shared or a status they wrote? What about the random phone calls afterhours, asking a person to show up for “coffee” the next morning, only to be interrogated, without the charge or reason being specified, and without officially summoning them in person, as the law states.
The message being sent to taxpayers by the ISF, is that if its bodies abuse citizens’ rights, no one will be held accountable for that, but if you “like” a tweet poking fun at Saudi Arabia, the main financier and godfather of several political parties in Lebanon, then you’ll be out of a job at lightning speed.
This is both demoralizing for taxpayers like us, but also honest cops, who know that they will not be punished for breaking human rights law, but might suffer the full wrath of their superiors if they dare utter, by mistake or not, something that a foreign ambassador might not like…
Hobeiche’s Response Was Even More Censorship Attempts
You’d think that being at the receiving end of censorship and bullying, that the former head of the Cybercrimes Bureau would realize the error of her ways and the negative, unfair and obtuse impact of trying to control what people can and cannot say, share or agree/disagree with. Instead though, she has filed a lawsuit against the person who caught her “like” of Charbel Khalil’s tweet. Whether by mistake or not, she did like that tweet, and punishing the person who revealed that, instead of taking it up with her superiors as a misunderstanding, shows that this ironic twist of fate didn’t really hammer in the idea we might have hoped it would: that trying to shut people up by force, and twisting their arms when they say something you don’t like, is never the answer.
Alas, this is not the case, and I wish that person luck in the upcoming investigations.
The Real Problem is Still There
The Cybercrimes Bureau is a symptom, not the disease. The real issue is with the judiciary, especially the general prosecutors, which are the folks who forward cases to that bureau. The problem is, any and all Internet-related cases are sent there, whether it’s child porn or a tweet that someone found offensive to the “symbols of the nation”. So, it’s no surprise the detectives there treat you like some criminal for a like or share, if what they’re supposed to be investigating is heinous crimes like credit card fraud, sexual abuse online, blackmail and malicious hacking.
That bureau is no place for a journalist or activist who in their passion said something that the current ruling elite were ticked off by.
The removal of Hobeiche, will not solve anything, and in the spirit of not prejudging her successor, he might do a better job, but he might also ramp up the bureau’s bullying activities as a tool against anyone who dissents from the general party line of the ruling political parties and politicians in Lebanon.
In Conclusion
The Cybercrimes Bureau needs to focus on real crimes, and stop wasting our tax money and arresting people for something they wrote, shared or liked. The judiciary needs to keep up with the times, and appoint qualified people who enforce laws that don’t date back to the 1950s before the Internet had even been concieved in fiction novels of the time.
What happened to Hobeiche is a valuable lesson for everyone in power, that the loopholes and ambiguities and lack of accountability you use to bully taxpayers like us, can come back to haunt you yourselves one day.
I hope the Cybercrimes Bureau will stop being a tool of oppression against taxpayers, and instead do the job it’s supposed to: fight online crime, not online free speech. For this to happen, public prosecutors need to stop wasting the bureau’s resources and accomplishments against actual crimes, in order to bully innocent citizens of Lebanon.
Mabrook! The Constitutional Council in Lebanon has halted the taxes today. The very poorly drafted law, even by its writers’ own admission, has been shot down because of how poorly it took into consideration Lebanon’s highest law: the constitution.
What Happened
The above is the decision by the Constitutional Council which came out today and will be published in the Official Newspaper tomorrow. It basically states that there are several issues with the law’s constitutionality.
Basically, in a nutshell:
They voted wrong. They should have voted by show of hands when called, they didn’t wait to be called. How bad of a parliament do you have to be if you don’t even know how to vote according to the constitution and your parliamentary by-laws?
This law was made to pay for another law, in the absence of an actual budget for the country, which is technically unconstitutional. We haven’t had a budget in over a decade I think, so making up laws, then making up one after it to pay for it, isn’t how government or legislative work happens.
This is the controversial “bank tax” issue. The tax law proposes a tax on the banking sector, which is a breach of the fact that taxes should target all sectors, not just a few. This is a controversial one, and I’ll get to it in more detail below.
The last reason is that the 11th article in the tax law is too vague, which makes implementing it a problem, which the council saw as even more reason to shoot down this law.
How it Happened
After the melodramatic way the MPs tried to pass this law, after the president suspended parliament’s work for a month, Kataeb chief Samy Gemayel promised to appeal against the taxes law. His bloc is 5 MPs, and he managed to get 5 other MPs to get the 10 minimum to be able to send an appeal to the Constitutional Council.
Apart from the 5 Kataeb MPs, the other MPs were Boutros Harb, Dory Chamoun, Salim Karam, Fouad Saad and Khaled Daher.
Now, here, I have extremely harsh reservations about some of the names, especially Khaled Daher. The anti-army, pro-extremist groups MP from Akkar who has been at odds with his Future Movement bloc for a while now, is a disgrace to Lebanon. However, if his signature helped kill that law, and that he signed for reasons that might not be ideal (just to spite his political party), then so be it, the law has been stopped, and hopefully he will be voted out in the upcoming elections.
The Bank Tax Issue
Many people will give this clause as an excuse to downplay how important this decision was. They state that it’s just protecting the banks’ interests in Lebanon, stopping them from paying taxes on their massive yearly profits.
I agree, and think banks in Lebanon should pay their fair share, especially since they own most of our public debt. However, people need to remember that the Constitutional Council’s job is to ensure laws are constitutional, not right or wrong on a moral, ethical or big-picture level. They’re the guys that decide if something is off-side, not if the general direction of the government is going down the toilet.
So, I think it was a smart move including that clause, to further shore up the claim about the law’s unconstitutionality. In other words, if you’re in the “fuck the banks” camp, don’t fret, this isn’t just about them. Singling them out in the law though, helped bring that law down, and that’s definitely a win for everyone.
What this Says About Our Government
That they are incredibly incompetent. I mean, have these MPs even read the constitution they’re supposed to protect? How incompetent can a public official be? Apparently, enough for the Constitutional Council to unanimously say “Nope.”
What can we expect from “lawmakers” that noticed the mistakes in their law, but said, “it’s ok, we’ll ratify this now and fix it later”. I mean, what the actual flying fuck? If you had any other job, your ass would be kicked out on the street for saying something so incredibly stupid and insulting to the taxpayers that pay your bloated salaries (for life and after life), who you are trying to steal from, again.
What’s Next?
The parliament can retry to pass a similar law, without all the mistakes and gross violations of the constitution. But, this risks another shoot down by the Constitutional Council. They can try to pass a budget, and include ways to figure out how to get money to finance the wage hike (that is still an active law).
They can also try to reform the corruption and wasteful spending, like taking dozens of people, including family and friends, on expensive trips to NY for the UN General Assembly and other trips. They can stop renting out ministries from their buddies in prime real estate locations, when the government owns plenty of empty buildings and lands. They can tax the illegal properties that occupy most of the Lebanese coast. There’s a million and one ways to finance the wage hike for public employees, that doesn’t include taking money out of those same pockets, and our pockets, employees of the private or non-governmental sectors.
It’s important to keep pressure on the parliament, so that they don’t try to rob us again. I don’t envy the government, who now has to figure out where to pay the wage hike from, given the taxes law has been dumped. Knowing them, they’ll still try to tax us despite no law, and that is when things will get dangerous, maybe violent even. Lebanese people are getting poorer by the day, and there’s only so much corruption we can stomach, given the tax law that was just shot down, would have pushed more than 100,000 of us under the poverty line…
The Elections are Coming
And we must remember who did what in this entire scandal. Samy Gemayel did Lebanese taxpayers a huge favor, and their stubbornness and understanding of the law and constitution helped ruin the plans of the ruling parties to syphon more money from us, without doing any reforms. As far as I’m concerned, the 128 illegitimate thieves, are now 123 illegitimate ones, cause 5 of them just did their jobs right for a change.
Everyone with those taxes, without any reforms, needs to stay home and never walk into parliament again. We have too many old farts that are political MPs, but not enough lawmakers who actually understand their job, the law and the constitution.
This will hopefully reinvigorate the movement against the ruling parties, and energize the independent campaigns being formed to run in the upcoming elections.
Mabrook everyone! Now let’s keep an eye on what the illegitimate MPs try to do next!
This issue has been on the news for a few days now, but it has sadly not garnered enough attention from folks not directly affected by it. I called up a few friends who live in the area, and a couple of contacts I have in political parties on either side of the divide in this scandal.
What’s stirking, is the overt use of excessive force against moms, dads and kids who live in the area. I wish we’d see such shows of force against armed thugs, wife killers or child molesters. Unfortunately, it seems the authorities only have muscles when it’s against innocent, unarmed taxpayers.
Do High Tension Power Cables Cause Cancer?
The short answer is, there is no evidence they do. Most studies and papers have found no correlation with cancer cases and high tension power cables EMFs in the vicinity. The studies that do are few, and are often disputed by other scientists. An exhaustive 339 page report by the WHO deducted:
“There is little experimental or theoretical evidence that mutations could be directly caused by ELF [extremely low frequency] magnetic fields…. There is little evidence that ELF electric or magnetic fields can cause malignant transformation of cells in culture.” (source)
Of course, further studies over longer periods of time might find otherwise, but with everything done so far, and all the controversy, there is no evidence to support these claims.
However, this does not mean the residents’ demands are unfounded and should not be heeded, and for several reasons.
Sound Pollution
Growing up, my apartment building in Awkar was just over 50 meters away from a high tension power cable tower. The electric hum of it was a nightmare, that years of trying to get used to it wouldn’t help erase that monotone, ominous hum of a tower that could be at best described as an eye sore.
It’s people’s right to not live under constant 24/7 noise, especially when you purposefully leave the city to avoid that kind of noise, up in Mansurieh and Ain Saadeh and surrounding areas of lower Metn.
Property Value Plummets
Despite no evidence to support the claim that these EMFs cause cancer, many people believe it is true. This means that houses and businesses close to EMF sources like the high tension power cables, will immediately plummet in value. And even if it didn’t cause cancer, who would wanna live under the constant hum of these cables and towers, and ruin their neighborhoods with ugly monstrosities with viable alternatives?
There Are Alternatives
The cables can be passed underground, which has been done in several places, such as between Baabda and Dahieh, and in Tripoli in the North. The excuse given was that they can’t do that in empty lands, which is not true, because a big part of the cables linking Dahieh and Baabda are passed underground in empty plots of land full of underbrush and trees. The excuse is also that it would cost more to place the cables underground.
Those with the high tension power cables, said that residents will be compensated for their homes if they wanna move elsewhere. This renders the argument that using the underground option is too costly, as false. It’d cost way more to pay out residents from their homes, than to pass the cables underground, given in some places where the cable is passing, the price per square meter can be 1700USD/sqm at least.
Elections Fever
In 2009 and 2012, when this issue flared up as well, many of the members of parliament advocating for it now, were staunchly against the high tension cables back then. An FPM comes to mind, and even though he was a fierce opponent of the plan before the FPM came to power, he is now supporting this project, which incidentally is a project run by a ministry controlled by his political party.
It’s important to note that the rush to force this down taxpayers’ throats, is going hand in hand with the scandalous “power ships” that the same political party is trying to shove down those same taxpayers’ throats, which will see billions of dollars of Lebanese taxpayer money go to temporary, environmentally unfriendly and shortsighted plans to get more electricity “soon”.
A perceived breakthrough in the humiliating power shortage Lebanon still faces almost a quarter of a century after the end of the Lebanese Civil War ended, would definitely help them in the upcoming elections, but how can one get power from those powerships without those new high tension cables?
This would explain the next section:
Excessive Use of Force
It’s weird that entire battalions of soldiers, along with dozens of riot police, and armored personnel carriers are needed to do what’s supposed to be just an infrastructure project. This shows how extremely hell-bent some politicians are on this, regardless of what taxpayers think, especially with elections looming. It’s also sad that the FPM and LF politicians flip-flopped so quick when they got cabinet ministries, who were with the residents just a few years ago, but not condone this unacceptable show of force and bullying, and outright lying on TV screens while keeping their silence when the issue is raised on the table of the council of ministers.
To Sum Up
The government should be ashamed of itself for using such excessive force against unarmed, peaceful taxpayers. Find a solution, don’t use brute force, intimidation and threats. That’s how you lose elections, not win them.
Good luck to the residents of Ain Saade and Mansurieh and the surrounding areas, we are all supporting you against the corrupt politicians trying to use our armed forces against us.
Gino's Blog 