Berri Meets German President, Reassures on Stability, Elections
إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربية
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Tuesday reassured that he “will not allow anything that jeopardizes stability and the unity of Lebanon and the Lebanese,” a day after his supporters blocked roads and staged a violent demo outside the Free Patriotic Movement's headquarters in protest at leaked remarks by FPM chief Jebran Bassil.
Berri also stressed the “importance” of the upcoming parliamentary elections and noted that the vote will be held on time.
The Speaker voiced his remarks during talks with visiting German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Monday's unrest across several Lebanese regions was sparked by the emergence of a video showing Bassil calling Berri a "thug" during a closed meeting in Batroun.
The leaked video which emerged Sunday comes amid an escalating dispute between Berri and President Michel Aoun over a decree granting one-year's seniority to a number of army officers.
Bassil is Aoun's son-in-law and heads his Free Patriotic Movement party. The footage drew the ire of Berri's aides and political allies, who lashed out at Bassil. Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil described Bassil in a tweet as "lowly" and a "political dwarf."
30 January 2018, 16:51
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Berri said to the visiting President, "I am a Shia, and I know how to keep Shias in their place. You taught us how to keep the subject races in their place. Maybe we can teach you how to use some of them to keep the rest in their place. That is the modern way of doing genocide." Berri was referring to Article 24 of the Lebanese Constitution which reserves half of Parliamentary seats for Christians. US Jewish progressive Noam Chomsky says that more than half of all Lebanese are Shia Muslims.
