Paris Slams 'Violence' against Saudi Daily's Beirut Offices
France on Monday condemned what it called the “acts of violence” that targeted the Beirut offices of the Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, after they were stormed by protesters on Friday.
We deplore “the acts of violence that hit the Beirut offices of the Asharq al-Awsat daily on April 1,” French foreign ministry spokesman Romain Nadal said, in response to a reporter's question.
“Freedom of press is essential and it must be respected by everyone,” Nadal added.
“We express our solidarity with the newspaper's editorial board and we hope the perpetrators will be identified and brought to justice,” he went on to say.
At least seven protesters have been detained over the incident since Friday.
“We are here to turn ourselves in. We are not terrorists, we were defending this flag and the country's sovereignty,” one of them said on Saturday as six wanted protesters turned themselves in to police.
“We did not attack anyone and we did not harm anyone,” one of the young men stressed.
An ISF patrol had on Saturday arrested the activist Pierre al-Hashash in the northern city of Batroun. According to an ISF statement issued Sunday, Hashash led the attack on the newspaper's offices and incited the other protesters to join him.
The young men stormed the offices on Friday in protest at a cartoon deemed insulting to Lebanon. A video posted on social media shows the protesters arguing with Lebanese employees and asking them to stage a strike to condemn the published cartoon, which contains the Lebanese flag and the phrase “The Lebanese State: An April Fools' Lie”.
Some of the protesters then move to the office's desks and start pushing stacks of newspapers to the ground, unfazed by the employees' appeals.
The incident comes amid tensions between the kingdom and Lebanon's Hizbullah and a series of Saudi measures against Lebanon and the Iran-backed party.
Y.R.
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