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Beirut, Lebanon – The anti-government uprising that started sweeping Lebanon two years ago may be a distant memory for many people in the country, and they are now struggling to deal with the complex economic crisis that has paralyzed most of the public life, but this is not the case for dozens of protesters This is currently awaiting trial in a military court.
According to the legal agenda of the regulatory agency, more than 200 people (including 6 minors) who were detained and released during the protest were summoned to the military justice system several months later and charged with acts of violence against the security forces. Most of them have not been tried.
Among the detainees was Alexander Polykevich. In January 2020, during a protest at the Central Bank of the capital Beirut, the 39-year-old dancer was talking to a policeman when five other policemen pulled him by the hair and beat him. They arrested him and took him away with two other protesters overnight.
“When they interrogated me, they asked me to admit that I sprayed paint on one of their superiors,” Polykevich told Al Jazeera.
Alexander Polykevich during the protests in Beirut [Courtesy of Alexandre Paulikevitch]In September 2020, the dancer received a call from the Lebanese military, inviting him to come over for a cup of “coffee”, a term commonly used by security agencies when calling someone for questioning. His home was destroyed in a fatal explosion in Beirut’s port last month, which destroyed most of the capital.
“I said,’Are you kidding! Military court?'” Paulikevich recalled. “I lost my home in the explosion. I lost my money. I couldn’t repair my house because the bank wouldn’t let me withdraw money. Now you are going to take me to a military court?”
By then, Paulikevich and the two other protesters he was detained will be the first protesters of the uprising, and they will hold hearings in the Lebanese military justice system. However, the hearing was postponed, and the military prosecutors did not contact them to arrange a new hearing until May of the following year.
The three were subsequently questioned in the same month, and two lawyers were present.
“They always tried to create a conspiracy to get the protesters to know each other and plan together,” Paulikovic recalled. “They will keep asking us how we met each other, etc. But once we told them the truth, we didn’t fall into the trap.”
In the end, all three were cleared. Legal Agenda lawyer Ghida Frangieh, who attended the questioning, was not surprised.
“So far, only 64 of the 237 people charged by the military justice system have been tried,” Frankie told Al Jazeera. “So far, 90% have been acquitted because there is no evidence.”
Frangieh called the prosecution “abusive” and she said she believed they were politically motivated. “In this case, it is to suppress the opposition.”
Mohammad Bzeih was summoned for military investigation more than a year after being arrested [Courtesy of Mohammad Bzeih/Al Jazeera]The youth-led protest movement became active on October 17, 2019. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to demand political and economic reforms away from the country’s sectarian ruling party and banks
In the past two years, the Lebanese pound has depreciated by about 90%, and today, about three-quarters of the population lives in poverty and cannot make ends meet.
Mohammad Bzeih, a member of the Lebanese Communist Party, was arrested in February 2020 when he, along with dozens of other protesters, blocked a road to the parliament.
A video widely shared on social media showed him sitting next to soldiers in riot gear, trying to attract them. He was talking about the economic crisis and how they became victims of corruption and the country’s financial crisis.
The 25-year-old Bzeih told Al Jazeera: “A soldier caught me and moved me to the riot police behind them.” “Then a lieutenant and his officer started beating me.”
Like many protesters, he was detained overnight and later released. More than a year later, in April 2021, his first military court hearing followed Lebanon’s first COVID-19 blockade last month, and the protests have waned.
“Someone asked me why I participated in the protest, what I did there, I was rioting and destroying property,” Bzeih said when recalling his April hearing. “They set a bank branch on fire that night, but I was arrested before that.”
Although Bzeih was found not guilty of assaulting security forces and rioting, he was recalled to appear in court again in late September. The authorities cited firecrackers in his backpack when summoned, but Bzeih, who was cleared again, stated that he believed this was because he angered the prosecutors during the defense in April.
Lebanon’s military justice system has extensive jurisdiction over civilians, including trials for espionage, treason and possession of weapons, as well as any form of conflict with security personnel. Some human rights organizations have been calling for the reduction of this broad jurisdiction, while others want to end all civil trials in military courts.
Frangieh said that investigations and hearings in military courts are very fast. Unlike civil courts, judges often make judgments on the same day without giving any explanation.
Both the lawyer and the detainee said that this experience caused great psychological harm.
“You are worried about your criminal record, basically your entire future,” Bzeih said.
On the other hand, Frangieh and other lawyers’ efforts to hold the authorities responsible for violent actions against protesters, such as in the Paulikevitch and Bzeh cases, were either dismissed or suspended.
In more serious cases, protesters detained in military detention centers claimed to have been subjected to various forms of torture, while two detainees told Amnesty International that they were subjected to mock executions.
No officials were held accountable. On August 8, 2020, four days after the Beirut port explosion, security personnel fired at the protesters with live ammunition and metal pellets. Human Rights Watch stated that the security forces used a disproportionate amount of “lethal force” that day.
Frankie told Al Jazeera: “All our complaints about police violence against protests, they are either closed or frozen.” “The military prosecutors closed our torture complaints, and they frozen us about the security forces protesting. 22 complaints about people who fired projectile guns or shot them in the eyes.”
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