Lebanese Appeals Court Confirms for 5th Time Homosexuality Not a Crime, as General Security Bans…

If you needed any more reason why the censorship authority needs to be removed from the hands of the Generel Security, and its adjacent “censorship committee” that includes religious institutions that vote on what you can watch, listen to or read, then I’ve got a perfect example for you all.

Historic Ruling by Appeals Court in Mount Lebanon on Article 534

Lebanese with a heart and brain were ecstatic when they read Legal Agenda’s latest news a few days ago. It’s in Arabic, so I will highlight the most important parts here.

Since 2009, 4 different judges in different circuits have exonerated members of the LGBT+ community by stipulating that Article 534 of the Lebanese penal code which states “sexual acts against nature” are punishable by up to a year in jail. The rationale for this exoneration hasn’t always been ideal, with some suggesting “treatment” as an alternative to punishment. However, this latest ruling, the first from a higher court (not individual judges) continues this progressive stance the Lebanese judiciary has been taking for almost a decade now.

The latest ruling comes from Judge Randa Kfoury and her two advisers Judge Zeidan and Judge Bou Nassar. Only judge Bou Nassar expressed reservations to the decision, meaning the decision passed with a majority of the judges. The decision was taken after considering the true intentions of the original writers of the penal code, and given that the alleged relationship was consensual, and not in a public space, that it did not actually apply to Article 534. The decision goes even further, suggesting “moyool” (sexual orientation) itself cannot be considered criminal under Article 534.

What’s important about this ruling, is that the judiciary is establishing its independence once again. Judges should and must have the ability to look at outdated laws with a more modern and inclusive lens. All these judges since 2009 have done so successfully.

This is a giant leap towards equality in Lebanon, and a great day for the LGBT community and their friends and supporters in Lebanon. Here’s to hoping other governmental bodies follow suit and join these trailblazing judges in the 21st century.

General Security Bans Student Film for Including “Liwat” (derogatory term in Arabic like “fag”)

Almost at the same time of this ruling, the Lebanese Independent Film Festival was surprised when one of their 250+ movies from Lebanon and across the world was banned. The banned movie was a student film, and included a few seconds of a kiss between two male actors. The GS waited till the last minute to inform the LIFF team about the movie not getting a “license” to screen, even though the director had a “license” to shoot the same film with the same script. When pressed for the reason, the officer said “la2an fi liwat” (because there’s fags).

It’s important to note that among the foreign films, one movie juxtaposed a scene of a woman reading a passage from the Bible, with another scene from a Pride Parade. That passed. This either means that the GS censors local directors even more harshly, or that they’re too lazy to watch all 250 films and decided to watch the ones they don’t need to read subtitles in. Both cases are shameful.

We Will Keep Moving Forward

At a time when the Lebanese judiciary has reiterated five times that being LGBT is not against Lebanese law, plenty of governmental institutions are still suffering from disgusting levels of homophobia, encouraged by Lebanon’s corrupt and dark-ages religious institutions who unfortunately have the biggest say in censorship issues.

However, the march towards progress and inclusivity will not stop, and despite banning a Coke ad with two girls because some sheikh thought they’re lesbians, and difficulties faced by LGBT NGOs every year for Pride Week, things will keep moving forward if enough of us speak up against the injustices suffered by our LGBT brothers and sisters on a daily basis.

We are working with the director of the banned film to figure out how we can let people watch his final year project, despite the GS’s horrifying and unjust decision, telling a student what he can and cannot portray in his own movie.

FPM-Amal Brutal Public Fallout Means General Prosecutors Must Stop Arresting People for Free Speech…

Most Lebanese have spent the past few hours gawking at how far the relationship between the Amal Movement and the Free Patriotic Movement has deteriorated. After comments by the foreign minister Gebran Bassil leaked, where he calls the speaker of parliament Nabih Berri a “thug”, an already strained relationship virtually devolved into outright threats and curses that are at more than 35k tweets at the time of writing this article.

Why You Should Care

Personally, I couldn’t give less of a fuck if the two political parties are fighting each other. It just shows that even though their heads were pretending to be friends, their bases have a LOT of hatred towards each other that was pent up, and is being released in the most disgusting, sectarian way possible.

However, seeing all this, and the outright threats of murdering Lebanon’s foreign minister, and other outrageous tweets and statuses that are tagged with the hashtag Amal supporters have started, there’s one thing that bothered me:

This recent scandal has proven that the General Prosecutors in Lebanon have lost complete legitimacy. That’s because they unleash the full power of the government, and use outdated laws against someone that calls the president “old”, or criticizes any of the symbols of the current “dynasty”, but we haven’t heard a peep from them after outright threats from political party supporters. Those supporters have made obvious breaches of the same outdated laws general prosecutions across Lebanon use to target, harass and jail activists, journalists and private citizens who do far less “crimes”.

You Can No Longer Arrest or Summon Someone for their Tweets

If you do, we’ll know that you are selectively applying the law, based on political affiliation and sect. The fact that political partisans can threaten a sitting foreign minister with murder, but a comedian can’t make lame jokes about MBS eating burgers, is a step too far.

Make no mistake, I am not asking that the Amal supporters get summoned, because I believe exaggeration and expressing frustration, even when too disgusting, is people’s unalienable right. And anyway, I don’t think the government has that power to do that against politically affiliated people, just us poor suckers who don’t deify a za3im.

However, the general prosecutors’ enthusiasm to jump on defenseless taxpayers whenever they tweet something silly or exaggerated, or hound journalists who don’t stick to the scripts sent from places like Saudi or Iran, is no longer valid given how they are turning a blind eye to outright threats and sectarian strife.

They can no longer give the excuse “Oh, we’re just enforcing the law” when a status calling the president old gets its writer in a police precinct, but when another citizen’s threats to kill a minister is accepted and fine.

Stop Arresting ANYONE for their Tweets/Statuses

I’m fine with the General Prosecutors not arresting Amal supporters for threatening the foreign minister, if they stop arresting anyone else for far less serious. However, constantly arresting people for harmless opinions shared online, while ones that could actually constitute inciting violence and encouraging someone’s murder, are condoned by the same prosecutors who are waiting for any hapless taxpayer to prey on, humiliate and rob them of their freedom for merely criticizing the people spending our taxes on private initiatives and bad plans with no vision.

If the Lebanese judicial system expects its taxpayers to consider them fair, transparent and independent, then nobody should get arrested for what they say online. Because preying on teenagers sharing articles, while letting political party members rile up sectarian strife and threaten with assassination, isn’t gonna fly anymore.

Lebanon’s Freedoms at the Mercy of a Wannabe Dictator

When Aoun was elected as president, after grinding the country to a halt for more than two years till he got what he wanted, regardless of the toll it took on the country, it was a very dark day for many Lebanese. It was a very glorious day for his party and supporters though, and they have been making use of their newfound power in ways that have made many reminisce how things were under the brutal regime of Assad when his forces were still occupying Lebanon…

I thought a lot if I should write this post or not, given that I will probably get called up by the Cybercrimes Bureau or Military Intelligence like so many other innocent taxpayers since Aoun’s new “dynasty”. Then, I remembered, that even the Syrian Occupation didn’t scare us, so why should one of the 128 illegitimate MPs whose salary is paid for by my taxes scare me?

Self-censorship is the most fickle of enemies, and no matter how many times I get called by “private” numbers to come “have coffee” in the police precincts that my taxes pay for, and get bullied by a policeman or detective whose salary I pay for, I’m still gonna exercise my right enshrined in our Constitution and our commitments as a country to the universal declaration of human rights and freedoms our tiny nation has always been known for, since before the current president was even born.

As the Rest of the Arab World Spirals Back into Dictatorships, We Should Be Doing the Opposite, Not Mimicking them

Sisi would be like Aoun, just with an Egyptian accent. A former military man, turned civilian president by force and against most taxpayers’ will. The parliament that voted in Aoun, is an illegitimate one, one that wasn’t voted for by the people, but which extended its term multiple times, illegally. Even Aoun didn’t like the extension, supposedly at least, but that no longer seemd an issue for them when that same illegitimate parliament agreed to finally install him as president.

This flip-flopping has marked the past few years of the Aounists’ political career. Remember when Gebran Bassil was a human rights defender? Defending insults and curses against President Michel Sleiman, and calling the arrest and prosecution of citizens for tweets as “outrageous”?

The irony is that since Bassil and his father-in-law came to power, it’s all they seem to be doing. Nothing has happened to help taxpayers’ in their daily life, in fact, all they did was hike up taxes on us, while doing nothing to reform the corruption festering in every last corner of this country’s government.

What’s worse about this, is that they deny it’s them doing this. This is a problem, because it means that they are either outright lying to the Lebanese taxpayer, or they are incompetent and unable to reign in their overzealous subordinates who seem to have mistaken Lebanon for Saudi Arabia or Iran. Both of these possibilities are horrendous, and I don’t see the FPM doing anything to try and fix that.

I guess it’s true what they say, when you’re not in power, you support freedom and rights and the rule of law, but when you get to power, you start abusing it to maintain that power and further your personal agendas at taxpayers’ expense. As Trump would say: SAD!

A Bad Move at the Wrong Time

Censorship skyrocketing under the new “3ahd” is probably the worst thing this broken government can do. As places like Egypt and the Gulf become more and more autocratic by the day, with censorship and consolidation of power, masked by good PR stunts like “allowing” women to drive to distract from violently consolidating power and bullying weaker nations, like MBS tried to do with Hariri.

This means that content creation and media in the Arab world is at an all-time low. Egypt is off the radar, Syria is caught up in its war, the Gulf is becoming increasingly inhospitable to anyone that dares shift a toe from the official party line.

This is a golden opportunity for Lebanon to fill in the huge vacuum of good, liberated content. As LBC chief Pierre Daher said on a talk show yesterday, income from Lebanon’s media industry was at 200 million in 2011. Today, it has sunk to 40 million. This is partly due to the horrendous foreign policy Lebanon has been practicing, distancing ourselves from other Arabs who we can sell that content to, and getting closer to nations that speak Turkish or Farsi, languages we can’t create good content in.

The thing that makes us special, is we can say what we want without worrying that the government will lock us up, torture us and kill us, like most Arab nations do to their taxpayers. Since Aoun’s election, we’re slowly becoming a nation that jails innocent taxpayers, without a trial, for a Facebook post or tweet. What the fuck are you doing? This is LEBANON, not Saudi Arabia, and not Iran.

We Foresaw This

I wrote this post in October 2016. It’s sad to see that all my 6 questions turned out to be justified. None of us did anything about it though, or too few of us at least. Many of us buy the lies of the government, saying it’s not them who’s persecuting people for their opinions. Then who is it? It just magically started when you got to power? And if so, and you’re against it, then why not do something to stop it, instead of condone it?

This has made them bolder in their authoritarian practices. Nowhere is that clearer than in the bold, dictatorial hounding of popular talk show host Marcel Ghanem. A judge and a minister, whose salaries are paid for by your taxes, are using force to question a Lebanese journalist, against his will, over guests who appeared on his show. If that isn’t the definition of butt-hurt police state, I don’t know what is.

The Problem is “Bay El Kell” Slogan

Every time I hear that phrase, I cringe. “Bay el Kell” means “Father of Everyone”. It’s everything wrong with our patriarchal system, summed up in one phrase.

The only people you are a father to, are your own kids. We don’t pay your salary to be our father, or a man who thinks he’s there to “discipline” taxpayers, activists and journalists. Your job is to be a public servant, and do your job, not spend your days going after those with no power who call you mean names or don’t idolize you like your fans do, putting up your face on the Virgin Mary’s undershirt, while you jail people for “blasphemy”… Hypocrites.

You’re not my dad. You’re not anyone’s dad. Your job is to try and fix this country, not return it to the Dark Ages and act as a morality police, wasting our time and taxes. For the Aoun supporters foaming at the mouth with rage as you read this, and who are cracking their fingers to type “this is the law, we are just executing it”, what about the laws against corruption? The laws that state you need to hold free and fair elections every 4 years? The laws that say you can’t dump garbage in the sea and burn it? The laws that say you can’t build hotels on public beaches? The laws that say you can’t jail 3500 pot smokers a year while doing nothing about the dealers? What about all the others laws you break every minute of every single day? Why don’t you execute those? Or is it just outdated laws that consolidate your power and bully your detractors that you suddenly care so deeply about?

Please, spare us, not everyone is stupid as the MP who shared the picture of the face of Aoun on the chest of the Virgin Mary. How come that guy, paid for by your salaries, didn’t spend two weeks in jail like other people who “insult” religions? Hypocrites.

Enough is Enough

The elections are coming, whether they like it or not. It’s time to eject these dictator wannabes from power, and stop the abuse against taxpayers at their hands. If immediate action isn’t taken to stop the skyrocketing censorship and harassment of taxpayers and journalists, then Aoun and his party have become what they allegedly were fighting against all those years: a corrupt police state that freedom-loving Lebanese need to resist.

Tomorrow morning, we will be at the Justice Palace to protest against the police state tactics of the current government against Marcel Ghanem, at 9:30AM. Come down and voice your concern and anger, if not to support Marcel, to defend what’s left of our freedom of expression under this authoritarian, patriarchal regime, in what should be a freedom-loving republic, not a bunch of wannabe-Sisis.

How To Protect Your Free Speech on Facebook from the Religious Fundamentalists in Lebanon

I wish there was some good news to share with you these days, but unfortunately, ever since the election of a president and the formation of the cabinet, freedom of speech has come to an all-time low in Lebanon. Honestly, things seem as bad as they were under the Syrian regime occupation these days, and with no excuse of a foreign army occupying us…

Plunging Back into the Dark Ages

The recent trend in religious fundamentalism seen in Lebanon, is throwing innocent tax payers in jail over Facebook statuses and tweets. This despicable, Saudi-like practice is a result of too many inflated egos, and too much time and taxpayer money to waste.

I know, it’s almost 2018, and “blasphemy” is still a thing in our laws.

The process works like this: a tabloid-style “news” website, or MTV, or other mouthpieces on the Saudi regime’s payroll, look for posts that virtually no one will ever see, and make a huge fuss about it. This makes opportunists in the justice and security system pounce on this, to “defend morals” or whatever, and get a taste of the spotlight, and of course, more clicks fuelled by misplaced outrage over stupid things, while we drown in garbage, shit Internet and corruption that would make the most brutal of dictators say “that’s too much”.

Given the ministers in our government don’t know how to do anything to help the taxpayers that pay their salaries, they instead waste our time and public money by hunting down people for stupid things like “blasphemy”, distracting us from the real crimes they commit every day and have been for the past few decades.

How to Take Precautions

Censorship is bad, and religious extremist censorship is the worst kind. So, here are a few tips to protect yourselves from the prying eyes of the thought police, and their religious extremist patrons that are out to get what’s left of our freedom of expression in a country that was once a beacon of free speech, slowly spiralling into a much poorer, backwards version of Saudi Arabia.

This will cover how to run and manage Facebook pages, without them being able to find and torture you.

Never use your personal email, or one that might identify you. Instead, use an email that you made just to start the page.
Use TOR when you are opening, posting, editing or monitoring your page. You can download it here. Once you download TOR, enable it, use the TOR browser to log on to Facebook on the link: facebookcorewwwi.onion
Hide the admins of the page, you can do that by going to your Page > Edit Page > Update Info > Featured > Edit Featured Page Owners and then remove the check next to the names of the admins.
Disable the public wall, as well as messages from users who like and follow your page, this will make it harder for the malicious people trying to shut you down to send phishing links that might entrap you or the innocent users who follow and like your page.

Why We Do This

We can’t expect the increasingly authoritarian system in Lebanon to suddenly care about human rights and freedom of expression. The best we can do is be careful, and make sure that their goal to suppress free speech and harass and intimidate those with different opinions is harder than it is now.

Protect yourselves, and never let the religious fundamentalists and corrupt government silence you or your thoughts.

Be safe, and always be free.

Special thanks to my dear friend and colleague Mo Najem for helping set these guidlines

Yogis in Lebanon: Beware of the Lebanese Church

From the infamous “AlJoumouriya” article

It seems like every few weeks, some “priest” writes a horrifying Facebook note or article in a newspaper, detailing the “evils” of Yoga, how it’s “satanic”, how it makes you “hysterical”, derives from “pagan” rituals, etc.

For most of us, it’s a funny and sad reality of religious people: they’re afraid of what they don’t understand, and consider anything more popular than Sunday mass, as a “satanic threat” to be dealt with. Now, anyone who went to a school, and owns a device that can connect them to the Internet, knows none of this is true. We just shrug it off, laughing at those priests and their followers, and how stupid and hateful they are.

However, if recent history has taught us anything, it’s that the Lebanese church and its enthusiasts might be stupid, but they are also very powerful. Below, I will discuss two instances about how the church’s oppression materialized in the real world, and why Yogis should be careful, and not just dismiss this orchestrated smear campaign as just another example of religious stupidity.

The Metal Witch Hunt (Late 90s-Early 00s)

It all started in 1994. A troubled kid showed up to morning assembly at my old school, pulled out a gun, and shot himself in the head. He was the son of a big-shot military commander, and his suicide came right after Kurt Cobain had shot himself in the face. Questions about abuse within the boy’s family were quickly stifled, and instead, a new culprit was blamed: heavy metal (not sure Nirvana qualifies as heavy metal, but hey, what else do you expect form the Lebanese chuch and authorities?).

That’s when the infamous metal-head witch hunt began, and is sadly, still ongoing almost 25 years later… Metal heads were actively hunted down by Lebanon’s police at the behest of the church. Their concerts would be raided with armed, plain-clothed undercover police. Their bands would be detained and questioned. Kids with long hair, skulls in their clothes or wearing a “Metallica” shirt would be arrested, forced to do a drug tests and charged with “blasphemy” and “worshipping satan” and other absurd charges.

Here’s what it felt like, from a PopMatters.com article:

When Deaïbess, a Christian, showed his interrogator the rosary around his wrist, he was accused of wearing it as “camouflage”. After signing papers promising that he would not listen to Nirvana or worship the Devil, he was released — only to be arrested again in 2007 for operating a heavy-metal-friendly pub in Beirut.

Each wave of arrests has been an effort by Lebanese leaders to distract the public from a political crisis, such as the end of the Syrian occupation in 2005 or increasing gas prices in 2002, Deaïbess said. “I firmly believe that every time the government needs to distract people from important issues, they will start an attack on metalheads. We are always the scapegoat of this rotten society.”

After the arrests in 2002 and 2003, many metal musicians fled Lebanon for good, weakening the scene. “[Arrests] will happen again. The Lebanese metal community is too weak right now to do much about it. I hope we’ll have enough good records that are supported internationally, so that our voice is so loud they can’t shut it out anymore,” Kaoteon said.

If you were a teenager like me back then, you heard about this. I still remember my school banning anything that was black, or had skulls or skeletons on them. A metal band’s patch on your backpack meant you were immediately in trouble.

This hysteria culminated in regular “reports” of “satanic rituals”, especially in and around cemeteries. Almost every suicide of a young person was automatically assumed to be part of a “black mass”. Tele Lumiere even broadcast live “exorcisms” of metal heads, who in retrospect, seem to have been mentally ill people, being abused for religious people’s satisfaction…

Disgusting stuff…

The Mansur Labaki Scandal

Convicted child molester, wanted by the INTERPOL

This is the single event that made me lose complete faith in Lebanon. Convicted by his peers in the Vatican as a serial child molester, Labaki, the man behind most of the Maronite hymns and songs you learn in Catholic school, has an INTERPOL arrest warrant in his name now. Instead of facing justice, he’s still a free man, although the church did give him a slap on the wrist: he can’t do mass anymore.

What’s shocking in this case, isn’t that a priest was molesting kids, that is a trait that has been recurring worldwide for decades. It’s how it was covered up. Rumors are that a TV series idolizing the predator priest are in the making, and will be, you guessed it, aired on Tele Lumiere (the exorcism junkies).

However, the thing that scared me the most, that showed how vicious and evil the church and its acolytes can be, is how they tried to cover up the stories of his victims in France. Victims and their families in France started a website, where victims can share their stories and people can support them in their recovery. The url of this site was subsequently banned from being accessed in Lebanon, and the same url, but with a .com instead of a .net, was set up that “exonerates” the disgraced priest… I found this out while working at LBCI News, and it took me an entire week of pounding the pavement, to find the paper trail. The .net could be accessed via TOR back then, but not on Lebanese DSL or mobile Internet. This ban was based on a judge’s order. So, in other words, the Labaki fans banned the victims’ support website, used the exact name, but with a .com instead of a .net, to try and hide the truth. If you are convinced of innocence (despite the INTERPOL warrant and Vatican guilty verdict) then why try to hide the stories and replace it with your own?

The Church is Evil and Powerful

We have a tendency to dismiss the religious as stupid fanatics, and even though that is largely true, they’re also very dangerous. They’re the kind of people that forcibly put sexual abuse victims in “der el saleeb” without due process. The kind of people that barricade journalists inside an Orthodox church after word came out an orthodox priest was also abusing children in Koura (Pandalemon). They’re the kind of people who 23 years later, still shut down and ban Metal music.

So, yogis, be careful. This orchestrated smear campaign about “being satanic” isn’t just religious people being religious people, it’s paving the way for another witch hunt. You might think it’s farfetched, but think of it this way: if a priest calls up a police officer and tells them some kids with dreads are having a “yoga festival”, who do you think he’ll believe? The vegan kid with dreads, or the priest he needs a blessing from to stay in his position? Just look at what the psy trance scene has been suffering through the past few years…

Organize yourselves, get good lawyers and always make sure you are on the good side of the cops and government. Take the priests who accuse you of satanism to court. Don’t let the mixture of ignorance, corruption and religiosity steamroll you like they tried to do to the metal scene, the psy scene and victims of sexual abuse by priests.

Don’t just laugh it off, you are in actual danger, by an extremely powerful oppressor that answers to no one in Lebanon.

Namaste everyone! ❤

In Lebanon, One Priest Decides What Movies You Can Watch

It seems like the never-ending, ever-escalating humiliation of Lebanese people is only becoming more absurd and stupid.

On August 7th, “Annabelle: Creation” was screened for the General Security’s Censorship Bureau. The horror movie which talks about a haunted doll, Annabelle, appeared to be too much for the military men, who felt the need to forward it to Lebanon’s equivalent of a propaganda organization: the censorship committee.

The censorship committee is a weird body, more suited for the regimes of Gaddafi, Mubarak, Sisi and Assad. On it sits representatives of several ministries, representatives of religious institutions and alleged “experts”.

When the GS censors aren’t sure what to do, they send the movie to that committee. Since August 7th, this committee hasn’t convened to watch the movie. They finally did yesterday, the night it was supposed to premiere in typical cowardly censorship fashion: waiting till the last minute, cause they’re ashamed of banning stuff.

Sources close to the matter have confirmed that the one hold out on the committee is a Lebanese Christian priest. He probably didn’t like the stuff about evil spirits and the fact nuns of an orphanage are the victims in the movie’s plot.

The final decision now rests in the hands of the Minister of Interior, Nuhad Mashnouq. Unfortunately, given how busy he is, he will probably sign off on the will of that priest, with the rest of the committee going along with this stupid and absurd ban, you know, for the whole “national unity” crap, as if a horror flic would threaten the sectarian balance in Lebanon…

This is absolutely unacceptable. Why does some priest, in an unelected position, that reeks of corruption and ineptitude, decide what you and I can watch in movie theaters? Fans of archaic censorship made a fuss about Wonderwoman and Gal Gadot. What’s their excuse now? There’s no Israelis involved in this movie. It’s just a lone priest, whose brain couldn’t process a simple movie, and decided to ban it.

Enough with this insult to our intelligence. We are adults, we pay taxes, and in a country where ministers and presidents throw you in a jail cell for a tweet or Facebook status, the very least they can do is just fuck off movies and keep themselves busy with evading taxes and wasting taxpayer money.

The pace at which we are becoming Egypt’s-Sisi-like is horrifying, and freedom and choice is under attack on every front and level. From archaic laws that OK rape if the victim is between 15 and 18, to arbitrary, illegal detention for expressing one’s opinion, and now this, banning a horror movie without any political, LGBT-related or Israel-involved message (which is the usual excuses they justify this oppression with). Inno, what the fuck is next? We crown the priests and sheikhs as god-emperors, and ask them permission to go out?

Shame on you. Let’s hope the Minister of Interior rectifies this, and makes sure this doesn’t happen again. And if you like censorship, go move to a country like Saudi or Iran, and leave us alone.

They’re Trying to Hike Taxes Without Us Noticing

Remember a couple of months ago, when we went down to protest the tax hike, and the president decided to suspend parliament for a month? The result was the less-than-ideal, tailor-made, gerrymandered new electoral law. Apart from that though, our politicians thought we’d lose focus and interest and that they can reintroduce their savage tax hike again when taxpayers had calmed down.

The Leaked Agenda

By now, all of you probably saw the leaked agenda of the upcoming two parliamentary sessions. The first item is the many years overdue wage increase for many public and private employees in Lebanon. The second, a series of savage tax hikes from those same people, and the rest of Lebanon’s taxpayers.

In other words, Lebanon’s politicians are doing nothing to stop corruption, wasteful spending and outright theft of public money and tax breaks and loopholes for them and their buddies. However, they’re putting on a PR stunt of increasing wages slightly, while hiking up taxes across the board.

What’s funny is how absurd the agenda is. Item 5 is “protection of animals” (how heartwarming). Item 3 is extradition of persons between Lebanon and Russia (why the fuck?)

The other two pages of the agenda are below:

So, prepare yourselves this week for massive protests to stop this disgusting attempt by Lebanon’s politicians to shove new taxes down our throat, when growth in the first 6 months of this year did not exceed 1%, unemployment has reached an unprecedented 30% and the government’s proposed budget is more like a chicken with its legs dipped in paint walking around randomly: no direction, no vision, no reform.

It’s sad that our corrupt leaders have become so predictable. I remember when we heard the news of the president suspending parliament for a month while protesting in the Central District, we all thought, they’ll just wait a little bit and try to pass it without us noticing. Well, we did, and your dirty tricks have become all too familiar.

A note to all the groups organizing next week’s protests: do it in the late afternoon, when the heat wave is more bearable and most people get off work.

We will stop these taxes again. Fund the wage hike by cutting your tax breaks and paying for all the crimes against Lebanese taxpayers, like occupying public beaches while paying no penalty or tax to reimburse Lebanon’s taxpayers.

Lebanon Joins the Burkini Frenzy A Bit Late

Oh, the burkini stuff again. Took us a while, but Lebanon is finally having a fit about burkinis.

What Happened

A woman and her family booked an expensive $250-a-night room at a resort in Tripoli. She broke out her most fashionable burkini and went down to the beach for her son’s first swim. The lifeguard came and told her she can’t swim there with her clothes on. Next someone higher up the chain of command. Then someone higher. In the end, they agreed to get reimbursed and leave the private resort’s part of a public beach.

Why People Are Defending the Resort

Bikini advocates don’t see what the big problem is. After all, the burkini-loving crew aren’t big on freedom of choice stuff. “Women’s Only Beaches” much?

In other words, religious conservatives hate anyone who isn’t like them. They harass, condemn, threaten even. Just look at the disgusting slime that is hay2at el 3olama2 el muslimin and other similar ISIS-sympathizing groups.

So, it’s only normal to want to give them a taste of their own medicine. I wouldn’t be surprised if a “Phoenician” said the timeless “they can build mosques near the Vatican, but a Christian can’t go into Mecca!”

But then, what would the difference between you and them be exactly?

The Religious Conservatives are Hypocrites. You Shouldn’t Be.

Of course someone who thinks they have the right to tell a woman what she can and cannot wear is going to be a hypocrite. What did you expect? But what’s sadder, is that you’re kinda doing it too by vehemently defending the position the resort took.

It’s no one’s business what a woman wears, or doesn’t. Even if you think the woman’s decision to cover up isn’t one based on true volition, or influenced by social and religious pressures, it’s still their decision to make, not yours. Many women decide to take off their veil on their own accord, others decide to wear them after not being veiled. The problem is when other people want to dictate that outright.

Now, religious people do that. They make you cover up to go into a place of worship that they appropriated from pagans who used to have drunken orgies in it. It’s how they roll. Their concept of freedom of choice only includes their choices, not other people’s. Like the fuss when someone has to cover up to meet a religious figure.

The nice thing about us though, is we don’t force anyone to behave or dress in a certain way to meet and greet us. That’s why we’re better than intolerant religious conservatives. That’s why more and more people grow farther apart from their faiths and sects with each passing day.

You Only Make Them Stronger

If you want to fight a brute, but you’re a pacifist, you’re probably gonna lose. Religious conservatives strive and live off their intolerance and hatred. You don’t. So hating on a woman for wanting to wear a burkini, isn’t gonna be as good as when the cons remove an ad cause it has a bikini in it, or threaten a gay pride event. They created that shit, and it’s what they’re best at. Don’t stoop to their level.

Just look at that electric cable incident in a mosque in Tripoli a few weeks ago. One of the religious fundamentalists cut the electricity to the speakers of the mosque. He then proceeded to accuse the cafe across the street that opens and serves food and drink in Ramadan, of cutting that cable as an “assault on Islam”. It sparked a huge fuss and the religious fundies had their undies up in a bunch. When the police investigated, it turned out they did it themselves to try and violently shut down the cafe. That’s the kind of people the pro-burkini people are. That’s not the kind of people the pro-choice (whether burkini or bikini) people are.

It’s hilariously painful to see the same people who want to force you to fast in Ramadan, who want women to cover up, who censor ads that offend their “sensibilities”, are suddenly crying for individual freedoms and freedom to choose. Then again, people like that aren’t exactly known for their strengths when it comes to critical thinking. So, let them be the hateful hypocrites they are, within bounds of course and as long as it isn’t affecting you or other people who don’t share their conservatism.

At the end of the day, in Lebanon, you can wear whatever the fuck you want. And if a private place has a dress code, whether it’s a club which wants you to dress up, or a place or worship that wants to wrap you with a blanket, avoid them. Fuck them, why go there and spend your money and time? Go somewhere more inclusive. The best way of making something fail, while something better succeed, is by choosing where to throw your money (keyword: choice, not forced, to the pro-banning culture and arts people). That’s why big clubs today in Lebanon no longer have strict dress codes, and the ones of yesteryear that did, are long gone.

In Short

Don’t be like the religious. They ban, censor, oppress, threaten and are petty. We shouldn’t be. If that poor mother really wants to wear her burkini while paying 250$ to take her kid swimming, she should be able to, if not at that resort, at another one. This isn’t Saudi Arabia or Iran. And even though it might make you furious that they enforce things on people you are against, remember, that’s why they suck, and other places don’t.

Discrimination is a thing reserved for religious conservatives, and even though your beastly instinct encourages you to treat them the same, you’re better than that, and you know it.

Lebanese Government Celebrating Third Nail in Democracy’s Coffin by Beating Protesters in the…

If you watch the videos below, you’d think whoever was beaten to a pulp is a suspected suicide bomber, or a serial killer, or a child rapist. It’s none of those, it’s peaceful protesters in front of the Beirut Municipality and Lebanese Parliament expressing their outrage at a third illegal extension of their term, years after their legitimacy expired.

Watch the savage beating of unarmed, peaceful protesters. The excessive use of force is sickening, especially that the protesters pose no threat whatsoever, and their demands are justified, and their right to express it is sacrosanct in the Lebanese Constitution’s preamble.

https://www.facebook.com/tol3etre7etkom/videos/2071188229809954/

Despicable.

This is why they got such a harsh beating: they threw eggs and tomatos at the MPs’ cars. If anything, the illegitimate MPs should get a ticket for going the wrong way on a one-way street in the heart of Beirut’s Central District. Instead though, the “parliament guard”, the same ones that shot live rounds during the 2015 protests and beat the shit out of several protesters after being gassed.

The third nail in Lebanon’s Democracy’s coffin was hammered in today. Slowly, painfully, till most of Lebanon’s taxpayers didn’t even notice the extension happened today. Our third in almost 10 years. The ones that did notice though, wouldn’t take it silent and at home, and went to express the outrage at the illegitimate MPs cars after they signed a deal robbing us of our right to vote for the third time. For that, they got batons to the face while they lay, pinned down in the streets by men that should not be wearing the Lebanese Army fatigues and Cedar tree.

Heads should roll for this disgusting violence today. Maybe the new Army Commander General Aoun can show us he can do what is necessary to discipline individuals that have tarnished the name and image of the Lebanese Army, and continued to do so, even more grotesquely, today.

Keep up to date with everything You Stink is doing here

https://www.facebook.com/tol3etre7etkom/

[EDIT: Just Got Banned] Chill, Wonder Woman Isn’t Banned in Lebanon

EDIT: So, movie theaters across Lebanon got an email asking them to not screen Wonder Woman as planned tonight. More details as I get them.

I don’t think this has happened since the last Tiesto concert… The kind of fuss and hypocrisy by some overzealous slacktivists waging BDS wars on phones with chips manufactured in Haifa. I guess the boycott just stems to stuff you don’t like or need, not everything. Regardless though, I will not get into this complicated clusterfuck right now.

Wonder Woman Debuts in Lebanese Theaters Tonight

If you’re a fan of Wonder Woman, and are glad that there’s finally a superhero movie where the main character and most the cast is female, you can watch Wonder Woman in theaters tonight. I spent today and yesterday following up this issue with several concerned parties, and the movie is definitely not banned and probably won’t be.

The General Security OKed It

The General Security Censorship Bureau is notorious for their absurd censoring and banning practices. So much so in fact, we have an entire museum dedicated to everything they’ve banned, both online and offline.

The General Security is also headed by Abbas Ibrahim, a staunchly pro-Hezbollah security chief that would definitely not be, as the slacktivists would say, “pro Israel” because he didn’t ban the movie.

That means the only way of this getting banned is if the boycott and divestment bureau in the ministry of trade and economy decideds to ban it. Lebanon and Syria are the only two countries in the world where there’s an actual government body tasked with banning Israeli stufff. However, given the track record of this bureau, they usually just shy away and waste time instead of bear the brunt of criticism for censoring something. Remember the Viber thing? And more recently, they thought they censored Batman vs Superman, when all of you went to the movies and stuffed your disappointed faces with popcorn at the unbanned, but shitty movie.

So, I don’t think the MoE is gonna ban anything, and anyway, they’re kinda late and lots of Lebanese have already seen it in the press screenings and avant premieres this week.

Colluding with Oppressive Governments Because You Hate Israel is Kinda Ironic

Israel is an occupying foe. The Lebanese government is supposed to be our public servants. You’d expect a vicious, evil regime like the extremist zionist one to behave that way with Palestinians. What’s our government’s excuse for their behavior? They don’t let elections happen, they steal all our public money, they assault without getting punished at every chance they get, they even fucking built a wall of shame like Israel’s when we were protesting them drowning us in garbage.

So, how is colluding with a horrible government much better than “supporting Israel” (as you blame those against the ban) exactly? How is working hand in hand with an illegitimate, oppressive and rudely criminal government to ban a superhero flick any better? It’s like the people who love Assad just cause he says he’s against Israel, disregarding the fact he has done far worse to many Arab peoples, including his own, than Israel has ever done.

Boycotts Are Good, Please Do Them, But

Boycotts are a civilized, effective and peaceful way of voicing one’s political opinions and applying pressure against causes you do not support. However, boycotts are very different from bans. People boycott things willingly, bans are done by force. So, if you ban things, and chuck it in the category of boycotting, you’re kinda missing the point, and maybe apply to be an Arab dictator instead of an activist fighting an occupier and oppressor of Arab peoples.

In other words, it’s kinda like fasting for Ramadan. If you’re doing it willingly, then bravo, you are a good person practicing their faith. But, if you force everyone else to fast too, that kinda defeats the purpose, and you’re a terrible human being for thinking and doing that. Same goes for boycotts, you can win over people’s hearts and minds to support your cause, but forcing them to without having a choice, cheapens and distorts the good work you’re trying to do.

So, if you are with the government banning this movie, then you do not have my support and the support of many who support the idea of BDS, just not the kind that’s institutionalized by the same government that won’t let Lebanese moms pass down their passports to their kids for fear their dad might be Palestinian.

Hypocrisy Has Some Limits

I know you guys love Facebook and Starbucks too much to boycott using them, so no one holds it against you when you do. However, to be a hypocrite, you need a little more sense. How did half a dozen movies featuring the same artist in the past few years escape your vigilant boycott eyes? How did it take you like 7 times to notice Tiesto has performed in Israel? What about all the anti-BDS celebrities, like Steven Spielberg, Kanye West, Scarlett Johansen, Seth Rogen, Kelsey Grammar (Fraiser) and many others? Does that mean we can’t watch ET anymore, or Pineapple Express?

And here, I’m not saying this because I want to force you to not be hypocrites, like you are trying to force Wonder Woman fans to not watch the movie. I say this because I’m sad when I see the subjective flip-flopping which makes an otherwise noble and just cause, look silly and stupid, like the Catholic Information Center banning The Da Vinci Code. Y’all really wanna be compared to those people?

Enjoy the Movie!

Censorship is wrong. Period. Even if it’s stuff you’re against, banning it is Saudi and Iran shit, not ours. You have every right to boycott and criticize, even protest. However, getting in the league with censorship done by the Lebanese government is an unforgivable sin, and I hope you don’t fall into that.

Book your movie tickets here or whichever is your closest or favorite cineplex!