Date: Feb 27, 2019 Source: The Daily Star Human rights violations persist despite Lebanon’s legislative wins: Amnesty Emily Lewis| The Daily Star BEIRUT: Despite encouraging changes to discriminatory legislation in Lebanon throughout 2018, corruption and the arbitrary arrests of human rights activists detracted from the country’s human rights record, Amnesty International’s annual report stated. “We have a big issue with corruption, and it has been acknowledged even by the state as a priority,” Sahar Mandour, Amnesty’s Lebanon researcher, told The Daily Star at the report’s launch Tuesday in Beirut. New Lebanese ministers have waxed lyrical about their commitment to increasing government accountability since the formation of the new Cabinet at the end of January after more than eight months of political deadlock. Still, political corruption remains a major concern for Amnesty. “Lebanon is a country that lives on international donors’ money. ... We are calling on [members of the international community] to oversee how the money they donate is spent,” she added. “The money that came into Lebanon to support refugees. Where did it go?” The continued violations against the rights of Lebanon’s most vulnerable communities also threatens the progressive values espoused by many politicians. The report presents Lebanon as one of two countries in the region, the other being Tunisia, that made progress on LGBTQ rights in 2018. As an example, it lauded the “small victory” that forbade the use of Article 534, which criminalizes sexual acts “against the laws of nature,” in the penal code to prosecute same-sex sexual relations. At the same time, Amnesty International highlighted harassment against people who identify as LGBTQ in Lebanon and the closure of two major LGBTQ events during the year. The report listed several other legislative victories that took place, though qualified many of them. Take, for instance, November’s creation of a commission to investigate thousands of persons who were forcibly disappeared during the 1975-90 Civil War. Amnesty described it as a “step toward accountability for past violations,” yet Mandour cast doubt over the commission’s outlook for success. She said many human rights laws in Lebanon passed under international pressure were never fully actualized, and cited Law 220, approved in 2000. The law aims to secure basic rights for the disabled, but has not been implemented. Also still unrealized, Amnesty noted, is Lebanon’s National Human Rights Institute, which received a mandate in 2017 to oversee the implementation of an anti-torture law but has thus far not been allocated an independent budget. Amnesty’s report also decried the case of actor Ziad Itani, whose allegations of torture during more than 100 days in detention have not been investigated by authorities. The return of Syrian refugees to their home country, which began in early 2018 after a deal between the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad and Lebanon’s General Security agency, also risks subjecting vulnerable individuals to human rights violations, Amnesty said. Diana Semaan, Amnesty’s Syria researcher, outlined a number of risks to the safety of Syrian refugees upon their return. She said these included the perpetration of physical violence against civilians, the lack of safe housing and the threat of forced disappearance, in addition to the continued tyranny of Assad. “How can you push more refugees into that situation without fixing it first?” Mandour said. “We will be pressuring the international community to allow at least [the United Nations refugee agency] into Syria so that refugees have access to someone other than the regime,” she added. Beyond looking at Lebanon, Amnesty’s report also provided an assessment of the human rights record across the Middle East and North Africa region, condemning what it described as “global indifference” toward regional human rights violations over the past year. The crackdown on dissidents and human rights activists in Egypt, Iran and Saudi Arabia is “emblematic of the inadequacy of the international response to rampant government violations,” a press release from Amnesty International said. According to the report, international arms trade and complacency toward injustice “has emboldened governments to commit appalling violations ... by giving them the sense that they need never fear facing justice.”