Minority sects demand role in government |
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03 November 2009
BEIRUT: Calls for increased minority sect representation in the next cabinet – and an even bigger cabinet – continued to be voiced on Monday. The Youth Organization for Muslim-Christian Dialogue called on Premier-designate Saad Hariri to include the country’s smaller sects in the next government, urging him to treat them like “first-class citizens.”
A group of Christian sects, including Syrian Orthodox, Syrian Catholic, Copts and Latins, currently have one seat designated for them in Parliament, and have never fielded a member of the executive branch of government.
“What prevents increasing the number of ministers to 32 and seeing the representation of Syrians and Alawis?” the dialogue group asked. “Why shouldn’t ministries be rotated between the sects, without there being a veto on one of the country’s sects?”
On Sunday, the Syrian community organized a small but angry protest at its continued lack of representation in most state posts.
“As young people, we’re in solidarity with the Syrian community,” the group said.
Separately, Habib Ifram, a perennial parliamentary candidate for the Minorities seat, took part in a ceremony in Hamra on Monday to unveil a commemorative statue of Iraqi Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani.
“Any regime that doesn’t give minorities their political and cultural rights doesn’t be deserved to be called a democracy,” Ifram told the gathering.
Ifram, who heads the Syrian League and serves as secretary of the Lebanese-Kurdistan Friendship Association, said “the time of marginalizing minority ethnic and national groups has ended.”
“In Lebanon, we are deprived to the point of marginalization,” he said, addressing his Kurdish audience.
“You aren’t recognized as a national group, or in terms of representation. You have the right to be in the Municipal Council of Beirut, and to be represented in the bureaucracy and in Parliament. Why are you being neglected? Where are your schools? Where are your institutions?”
“We Syrians are called a Christian minority and they’ve kept us, since independence, from having any ministerial post,” he said. – The Daily Star
© Copyright The Daily Star 2009.
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