Safieddine Slams 'Hostile' Road-Blocking, Decries Political 'Absence' of Protest Movement

A senior Hizbullah official on Friday said the tensions of the past few days in Lebanon are “totally unjustified.”

“After what happened over the past few days, and after the blatant political and partisan interferences, we have to ask and the protest movement has to ask about the identity of those sides that have a political program and are seeking to push the country into tensions and push the protest movement to practice harm and aggression against the rest of the people,” the head of Hizbullah’s executive council, Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, said.

“Is the blocking of roads a democratic or a demands-related act? The blocking of roads is a hostile act and this method of pressure carries an incorrect approach,” Safieddine added.

“You have voiced your stance and the people heard it, and I believe that the real protest movement is not concerned with all these methods which it doesn’t need,” the Hizbullah official went on to say.

He added: “We don’t believe that the protest movement has become this weak to resort to a method that reflects weakness, which is the method of blocking roads and harming people. This harms the protest movement itself.”

Noting that protesters know the sides that want to implicate them, Safieddine said the Lebanese also know the “unsuccessful and incompetent politicians” who are allegedly seeking to exploit their demos.

“They have not managed to maintain their political stances through their own means and they are the ones who bear the responsibility for what is happening,” the Hizbullah official added.

Warning all parties that Lebanon should not “descend into further tensions,” Safieddine lamented the protest movement’s political “absence.”

“Why don’t you proclaim yourselves so that you become present and reap what you have achieved with your hands, screams and street protests? Why are you leaving things to others who are speaking in your name through the blocking of roads and the imposition of a political program?” the Hizbullah official added.