One year after imposing prior censorship on news and political programming broadcast abroad by
private television stations, the cabinet of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri went a step further by
banning the practice of broadcasting political programming abroad in January. The move
immediately followed a live television interview with Najah Wakim, an opposition member of
parliament, broadcast on the private
station LBCI in which Wakim excoriated Hariri and the government on a wide range of topics.
A variety of laws and decrees continued to threaten journalists in both the print and broadcast
media. Decree 7997 (enacted in 1996) bans stations from broadcasting news that seeks to
"inflame or incite sectarian or religious chauvinism," or which contains "slander,
disparagement, disgrace, [or] defamation," while the Audiovisual Law (1994) empowers the
Ministry of Information to close television and radio stations that violate these and other
equally ambiguous statutes. Authorities continued to use criminal defamation statutes against
outspoken journalists, and reined in undesirable criticism by banning foreign publications.
In November, parliament elected Gen. Emile Lahoud as the country's 11th president since
independence, replacing Elias Hrawi. Lahoud's election was a cause for optimism among
journalists as the new president pledged his commitment to the protection of press freedom. In
late December, Lahoud publicly promised that he would not invoke criminal libel statutes
against critical journalists as his predecessor had done. "Whatever is published against me,
the final judge will be my actions," he said in a newspaper interview, "and if I'm able to
prove that what is being published or said is wrong with actions, why should I care about what
is said, especially if it is criticism on a
personal level?"
Regardless of Lahoud's policies, Lebanon's journalists will have to contend with Syria's
ongoing military presence, which continues to interfere with independent reporting. Since
Syrian troops entered the country in 1976, the heavy-handed and arbitrary practices of Syrian
security forces have instilled fear among the press, and journalists largely avoid any
meaningful criticism of Syrian President Hafez al-Assad and Syria's controversial presence in
Lebanon.
|
|
|
