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Anti-sectarian protests planned in Beirut, Amsheet Sunday

25 March 2011

BEIRUT: Activists are planning more demonstrations Sunday as part of a national campaign to “topple the sectarian system,” with a protest organized for the capital and a march to take place from Amsheet to Jbeil.

“We are continuing the movement,” said Dyab Abu Jahjah, an organizer of the Beirut demonstration.

The protesters will meet in front of UNESCO palace at noon and head for several symbolic locations.

“We will stop at [Nabih] Berri’s house in Ain al-Tineh, [Saad] Hariri’s house in Qoreitem, and [Walid] Jumlatt’s house in Clemenceau,” he said, adding the protesters were also planning to stop by the headquarters of Ogero telecom company in Mina al-Hosn.

“The message we’re trying to pass on is that the sectarian system is the source of all the vices,” he said, explaining that aside from demanding the toppling of the sectarian system and its leaders, the activists will also protest against phone prices, “some of the most expensive in the world and a tax imposed on regular people,” as Abu Jahjah put it. High gasoline and bread prices are also targets.

He said the chosen itinerary also aimed at condemning the security perimeters around leaders’ residences that he said, are causing “incredible traffic jams and suffocating people.”

Jahjah said the activists believed all the country’s issues were linked, and related to the sectarian system.

“The corruption comes from the fact that every community in the country is trying to protect itself.”

“The main cause is to topple the system because it’s allowing corruption and paralyzing the country with civil wars every 10 years. We have to change that,” he continued.

The demonstration is part of a national campaign for secular society, which has been going on for nearly a month. Last Sunday, thousands marched from Sassine Square in Achrafieh to the Interior Ministry in Sanayeh, where activists have been holding a sit-in for three weeks.

Later Sunday, other activists will gather at 3 p.m. in the main square of Amsheet, and then march to nearby Jbeil. The activists coming from the capital will meet in Dora a few hours before the later protest to take a bus to Amsheet together.

“We don’t want to just stay in Beirut, we need to spread all over Lebanon,” said Maya Muhieddine, one of the activists. “This system exists all over Lebanon, [so] we don’t want to be central.”

Some activists criticized the plans for a separate event in Beirut on the same day, arguing it would take the focus off the march from Amsheet to Jbeil and divide protesters.

Abu Jahjah dismissed the notion that his group intended to undermine the march from Amsheet to Jbeil, and said many of those attending the demonstration in Beirut were planning to join the march later in the day.

“This is a spontaneous movement, with no central command,” he said.

“I hope there will be 10 demonstrations on Sunday, not one,” he continued, comparing the movement to the uprising in Egypt, where, he said, “they didn’t always coordinate.”

Muhieddine agreed. “We’re not against the other demonstration; we have to show we’re everywhere.”

© Copyright The Daily Star 2011.