Dear friends,

We need your help in building our platform for Take Back Parliament. We have compiled a long list of issues to draft positions on (see below). I am sure it is incomplete (a) and I need your expertise in different issues to draft one-page positions on them (b).

So if you’ve worked on one of these before and you can help out with resources, please do. If you can draft the one-pager for us, please do as well. Here I have uploaded a word document that is a draft of our women’s rights position. You can use the same format: stating the problem and stating the changes you want in bullet form.

I know you are probably thinking: gosh, there is too much to change, but let’s try condensing things into different papers and tangible demands. You don’t have to write a thesis, just 1-2 pages will do fine. We will have time to elaborate on our positions later on. Our deadline for these papers is end of October, after which we will post them for the public’s review and feedback.

Message me if you want to talk more and thank you very much!

Green and Public Spaces
Reclaiming of Public Property
Efficient Urban Planning
Preservation of Lebanese Heritage
Investment in Culture and Art
School Educational Reform
Lebanese University Reform
Internet Freedom and Access
New and Alternative Media
Freedom of Speech
Municipality Reform
Regional Decentralization
A Smaller Parliament and Reduction of MP Salaries
A Civil Personal Status Law
Secularism
Cancellation of Confessional Quotas in Public Positions
Administrative Reform
Electoral Reform
Affordable and efficient public transportation
Traffic Reduction
Efficient Electricity Access
Efficient Water Access
Progressive Healthcare for All
A National Foreign and Defense Policy
Complete End to Arbitrary Detention and Torture
Human Rights
Women’s Rights
Rights of People with Disabilities
Workers’ Rights
Migrant Rights
Sexual and Bodily Rights
Prison Reform
Accountability and Memory of the Civil War
Progressive Taxation
Fiscal Reform
Support for Entrepreneurship
Sustainable Development of Agriculture
Sustainable Development of Industry
Reforming the Rent Law
Recycling and Zero Waste
Animal Rights
Environmental Preservation

So the current Church-sponsored electoral reform plan proposed in the name of the “Orthodox Gathering” (which most Christian leaders have abandoned) suggests that citizens vote only for MPs of their own sect. That means Maronites vote only for Maronites, Shiites vote only for Shiites, etc.

Amidst the struggle for secularism and civil laws, it seems the trend for further “purifying” of political sectarianism in Lebanon is still going strong.

Anyway, Al Balad ran a fantastic story about a very similar law that was proposed in Lebanon in 1922. 1922! That’s even before the formation of the modern state in 1943, back when it was Loubnan Al Kabeer. This is remarkable in its own way but one response to it – even back in 1922 – is worthy of its own story.

Michel Zakkour, a journalist who later became an MP and a Minister of Interior, published a piece in his then newspaper “Al Maarad” proposing a sarcastic alternative to what he saw as an outrageous, sectarian electoral law. His idea – which he named as equally preposterous to the idea of people voting only for people from their own confession – was to do the exact opposite. Everybody can vote for said MP except citizens of his own confession. That (messed up, says Zakkour, but wise) system would create a Parliament where loyalty to the entire nation would perhaps overcome sectarian isolation.

وعلى سبيل الاستطراد وذكر النظير بمناسبة نظيره اقول انه انا ايضاً خطرت في بالي طريقة انتخاب عرجاء عوجاء مثل طريقة هؤلاء الطائفيين ولكنها لا تخلو من حكمة، وهي ان نحرم كل واحدة من الطوائف من الاشتراك في انتخاب النائب الذي ينتمي اليها، اي ان ندع للمسلمين وللموارنة وللروم الكاثوليك ولليهود وسائر الاقليات في بيروت ان ينتخبوا وحدهم دون الروم الارثوذكس النائب البيروتي الارثوذكسي، وان ندع لكل هذه الطوائف دون المسلمين ان ينتخبوا النائب البيروتي المسلم، وهكذا في انتخاب سائر النواب في بيروت وفي سواها من المناطق الانتخابية.
ان هذه الطريقة العرجاء العوجاء تنشئ لنا مجلساً تتغلب فيه الصفة الوطنية على الصفة الطائفية بل مجلساً يحبّب إلينا التجرد من الاستقلال الطائفي في ما هو مشترك بين اللبنانيين جميعاً.

Brilliant, no? Funny guy this Zakkour – from 1922. I wonder which Lebanese leader today would have the guts to ridicule the Orthodox Gathering’s electoral law proposal like he did.

Nobody talks about Sabra and Shatila in my family. We all know, though, that some of us fought for Hobeika during the civil, for Geagea and Bashir and Aoun – all in the same family. There was no logic to the Lebanese civil war, nothing I can trace that shows any loyalty or creed anyone followed that didn’t change and change back. It was a time of chaos and desperation and a vengeance chain of massacres that led to war that led to more massacres that led to more war. Anybody who tries to make sense of it is trying in vain. What remains to be made is redemption for the crimes, the murders, the kidnappings, and the total sell-out of the Lebanese and the Palestinian people. Redemption can only be made through acknowledgement and apology.

Many have called for efforts to commemorate the civil war so that generations would remember how sectarianism kills hundreds of thousands of people. That never happened – and how could it with the same militia men and their militia parties in parliamentary seats today? It is an offense that nobody has apologized. There was no one side to blame, and, therefore, everybody is to blame. And everybody must apologize. It is the first step towards accountability. It entails acknowledgement. Doesn’t make up for it – the least all these parties could do is dissolve themselves. But it’s the first step.

This weekend is the commemoration of the Sabra and Shatila massacre that happened on September 16, 1982. Thousands of men, women, and children were lined up and killed under an Israeli-lit sky and a Christian-led killing machine. It is no different than the Tal el Zaatar massacre where women running away had their babies snatched from them so the soldiers could kill the male babies, the “future fighters.” They bashed the babies’ heads against the wall in front of their mothers. It is no different than the Damour massacre or the Ehden massacre or Black Saturday or the Karantina massacre or the Hama massacre.

Decades after the war, we must still hold political parties responsible. We must hold ourselves responsible. We all come from families that took part in the war. We all come from families that suffered the loss of sons and daughters during the war. We are all responsible. Even those of us who weren’t yet alive during these crimes. We carry the legacy of the crimes committed in our names still – the unspoken burden of history. We must all apologize.

I start with myself. I apologize for the crimes of Sabra and Shatila committed in the name of Christians in 1982. I apologize to the thousands of Palestinians who lost their souls in the most heinous of crimes. I apologize to the families who saw their loved ones slaughtered in front of their eyes. I apologize to all the women who were raped repeatedly for days on end. I apologize to their children – now probably my age – for the wounds they bear. I apologize with all my heart. I’m sorry.

What else does a post-war Lebanon look like?

For years now, the Civil Campaign for Electoral Reform has been lobbying for proportional elections, a 30% women’s quota, lowering the voting age to 18, allowing diaspora voting in Lebanese embassies, and a list of other reforms. With time ticking for the 2013 elections scheduled for next May (although many speculate it will be postponed depending on the uprising in Syria), the Lebanese government met today and passed a proposed law to Parliament, which includes proportional representation based on a Lebanon of 13 districts. Since nothing in Lebanon is decided outside of the March 8 / 14 deadlock, it is clear that the current March 8 government would push for proportional representation not because it is more fair but because it would benefit the Free Patriotic Movement, Hezbollah, and other members of the coalition who had greater numbers of votes in the 2009 elections. Zako has a full study of 2009 election results on a proportional scheme here. Odds are that the March 14 bloc will turn down the proposal in Parliament and the country will go to another majority representation in the 2013 elections.

Women’s Political Participation

But now we look at the issue of women’s quota, which was discussed as part of the proposal in government today. I haven’t cared for gender quotas much in Lebanon since we all know the same MP seats are going to be filled with the same corrupt sectarian politicians – men or women. We used to focus our discussions at Nasawiya on the question of: do we want women in Parliament just for representation, so girls can have role models? Or do we not care about women as long as they replicate the same sectarian models? Given that this is a false dilemma, many of us opted for wanting strong, feminist, secularist women in Parliament who can hopefully be elected in a non-confessional system. Of course, this was all theory for me until I actually started meeting women MPs and working on the Take Back Parliament campaign. It was then that I realized that there is really no women’s engagement in politics in Lebanon. None. The issue is not about female MPs or ministers alone – the issue is that there weren’t any women I could name that were political analysts, heads of news desks, editors of political pages in newspapers, bloggers, journalists, anything. Since the days of the civil war in the 70s, women were completely alienated from Lebanese politics – much to their credit, some would say, for who would want to be associated with such a bloody war – and have not been able to get back into the arena since the 90s. And if women are not at the table, you can be sure that their issues are not at the agenda.

This is a structural issue – one that will take years to fix – and the solutions must come at many levels. Electoral quotas are one of these solutions, temporary of course, that could get more women into the political sphere. There is no guarantee that women’s issues will then make it into political agendas (we cite Gilberte Zouein’s shameful stance on family violence as an example). But, frankly, no women on the table at all is an absolute guarantee that women’s issues won’t be on the agenda. So whether or not you agree to a quota, take a look at the disgusting way in which the issue was discussed in government to give you an understanding of just how isolated women are from politics and how shamefully their demand for political representation is treated.

The Discussion on Women’s Quota

In 2011, Cabinet chose zero women ministers and here was Michel Aoun’s chauvinistic reply to why. Basically he said women lack the experience for public service. All women, apparently. His same government now treated women’s quota in the following way.

Firstly, the discussion of percentage happened in the most random of ways, with one minister suggesting 5-7%, another minister upping him to 15-17%, and the majority agreeing that they must take the average of 10%. As if they were discussing what to order for lunch. It shows you just how little concern they pay to the issue of no women in politics as a fundamentally unimportant crisis. Nobody seems to notice that half of the country is not concerned with the way the country is run. Perhaps they know this is to their advantage as sectarian war lords.

And then, during the discussion, MP Nicolas Fattoush (Zahle, March 14) dares to utter the most hypocritical argument against women’s quota by referring to Article 7 of the Lebanese Constitution that states that all Lebanese are equal before the law. Mon Dieu. The nerve of this guy. All Lebanese are equal before the law? Where the hell was that argument when women demanded equal citizenship rights or equal marital laws or equal labor laws or equal anything?

WTF. There is no equality before the law, Mr. Fattoush, we live as gendered citizens – the structures of patriarchy and misogyny (perpetuated by our very government) prevent women from access to protection and to equal treatment everywhere from the home to public spaces to police stations to courts of law. This is a perfect example of empty concepts of equality at the disposal and service of those in power.

When asked about women’s quota, Michel Aoun, the same guy who said women lack experience in the political sphere insulted the question with: “Lebanese culture is misogynistic and doesn’t want to see women in positions of power. You, as women, must create strong women’s movements to impose your opinion. You must refuse all gifts! I personally refuse to give you this gift, you must go out and fight for it!”

WTF again. Ya3ni, I don’t know what to say to that, Mr. Aoun. You think supporting women’s political participation is a gift that women should fight for? And you, a man on top of that pyramid of power won’t do anything to support it, like say, I dunno, instate a women’s quota? The women’s movement has been banging its head against the FPM-majority committee for the protection of women from family violence — these are the same MPs who have claimed that gender-based violence is being handled fine by religious courts and that the state shouldn’t interfere when in fact, at least one woman is dying every month as a direct result of family violence. How hypocritical these statements are and how insulting to all women in Lebanon and all women’s movements.

No Country for Women

The misogyny of these politicians has to be brought to a stop. Every phrase they utter about women is insulting. I hear stories about this every day – even from women MPs and journalists. The other day at the Family Violence press conference, Samir el Jisr had the nerve to tell a woman journalist that she didn’t understand what rape was. He then went on to give her the legal definition of rape. This is the epitome of insult. A man telling a woman what rape is. This corrupt political landscape needs to change on so many levels and one of these is to get large percentages of women from the women’s movement into Parliament, Government, and municipalities. The final format of the proposed law seems to have included a gender quota of “at least one person from every gender in the nomination lists.” That means there must be one woman nominee in every list (the proportional system mandates closed election lists). What a wonderful gift, Lebanon. I’m sure women feel more motivated to work hard for their basic human rights now.

Hello there.

I have a proposal for you as a follow up to this post I wrote 2 months ago about taking back the Lebanese Parliament. I have been trying to find traction and excitement for this project but I can’t manage to convince people around me. Everyone says nobody will be on board and that it’s a failed idea. So I decided to put it online and ask for your feedback (whoever you are). Let me know how you feel about it. Be honest cos I might be wrong. But I can’t help thinking that if we can find a few hundred people who can believe in this, perhaps we can achieve the impossible.

—–

It is clear that we, the people, need to take back Parliament from the claws of the zo3ama, millionaires, and warlords. It is clear that all political parties in Lebanon are too sectarian and corrupt to change anything. We are stuck. We can dream of a revolution in the streets. Or we can dream of a revolution at the voting ballots.

The Lebanese Parliament should not exist so that the rich feudal lords can become richer and enforce their control over people. It exists to legislate laws that protect the people, ensure equality, and develop our economy and culture. Clearly, it has been doing none of that for decades now.

We must take it back.

Despite the corruption and inefficiency of the electoral system, we can still create a third option. Despite the sectarian division of the districts and the confessional quota of the seats, we can still run with an agenda to change this. Let’s elect new, qualified, inspiring people to Parliament. Let’s create a national coalition of top-notch candidates who support a platform of secularism, civil laws and socio-economic justice. Let’s vote for independent candidates who have fresh new ideas and commitments. Let’s support the new talents who usually have no chance: the women, the youth, the workers, the ones who have never had a relative in Parliament. Let’s hold our representatives accountable. Let’s revolutionize the system. Let’s run a low-budget, eco-friendly, grassroots campaign that will astonish generations. A coalition where everyone has a critical voice – and nobody is a blind follower. Let’s remember forever that summer we took back Parliament – against all odds, when nobody believed it was possible.

Makes you a little nervous, doesn’t it? Could it really happen? No. Surely, it is impossible. Or is it? Maybe? If we work hard enough? No… what is this naïve unrealistic dream, I obviously don’t know shit about politics. But wait. Can we gather enough heart and intelligence to face the billions of dollars in bribes? Can we break that barrier of fear and intimidation? Can we make our people believe in their power again?

I’m just like you – uncertain. But the mere thought of engaging in a real battle for Parliament in 2013 (instead of getting depressed) makes my heart dance. So I decided to put up this post and ask my fellow Lebanese: are we ready? What do you think? Can we find a few hundred Lebanese who can commit to a new 2013 elections campaign?

To you, the answer.

P.S. I will not publish your info online anywhere ever. But I will email you to have coffee.

Yes. It’s true. Yesterday, we went to Vantage Points, a film festival organized by UNHCR in Metropolis Sofil to mark World Refugee Day. This was happening while 20 Sudanese refugees had been on hunger strike for 15 days to protest their maltreatment. We escorted 4 refugees on hunger strike and their families (including 8 children). The kids handed out flyers to the attendees that explain the reasons behind the hunger strike. Check photos here.

They were completely ignored by UNHCR. When the film started, we went into the theater and lifted a banner (photo below) and they held up posters that said “Why won’t you meet with us?” The cinema staff asked us to get out of the theater and not disrupt the film screening. So we got out and sat in the lobby. An hour passed and still nobody from UNHCR would talk to the refugees. One person earlier only asked them if they wanted to see the movie.

After an hour, Tony, who works at Sofil came to tell us that he was obliged to notify the authorities of our presence. We asked why and he said because we were bring disruptive. Note that we had only been sitting in the lobby for an hour quietly, waiting for the audience to finish the movie, thinking maybe they might want to talk to the Sudanese refugees then. Tony had asked us to leave before, but we insisted on staying. He then warned us that the police might come. Why? we asked. He repeated that we had been disruptive. I asked him if UNHCR had asked him to call the police and he said yes – although UNHCR staff then denied that they had called the cops. You can call Tony yourself and ask him.

The police arrived, asked us to leave, and we insisted on staying. They agreed that we weren’t being disruptive and told us we could stay but couldn’t do any action on the premises. So we stayed. 15 minutes later, a second police patrol came with a higher-ranking officer. UNHCR finished their movie and came out into the lobby to have wine and snacks. They stood there eating, drinking, and chatting, with the police standing between them and the refugees (kids, again).

The level of ignoring at the event was surreal to me. Not a word, nothing. Not a hello, how do you do, nothing. The Sudanese families were completely invisible. UNHCR kept chatting with their audience at the event, saying they couldn’t do anything about their situation. But how could they not even say hello? If it is true that it’s not in their hands, why can’t they just meet with the refugees and explain everything and reach a compromise? How could they treat them with such indifference and impertinence? It was pretty obvious that they had circulated an internal memo asking their staff not to talk to the refugees at all. I’m pretty sure they were expecting some action at their event. They seemed unsurprised and unaffected.

It was one of the most depressing things I’ve ever seen – to be so invisible to people in power. Our Sudanese friends were less shocked than we were, having experienced this sort of treatment for years. What else did you expect? they asked us. Perhaps I was expecting a tad bit more humanity and compassion from the people who make their living off of helping others.

Two remarkable images struck me this week. The first is the new batch of women in the Lebanese police force and the second is the half-women cabinet of France’s new Prime Minister. Of course, activists will say: “yes, but..” about either of these – but I am taking a minute the celebrate the pure awesomeness of breaking the stereotype that women can’t do [insert whatever] and that the social order will crumble if they did. Kickass!

Lebanon’s Tough New Policewomen – how beautiful they are.

17 Women in the French Cabinet of 34 – how beautiful they are.

This feeling has been creeping up inside me for some weeks now. It used to be a dream and then it became an idea and now it’s a lot more powerful than that. Now it’s become a feeling.

I have a feeling that our time has come. We, the people on the margins. The angry, disenfranchised people who pay too much for bread and fuel and rent and water and parking. We, the kids who grew up in the 80s. We, who are unamused by boring media and mindless entertainment. We, who’ve been struggling for years trying to create small, important projects that go nowhere and achieve nothing. Civil marriage. Women’s rights. Green spaces. Anti-corruption. Renewable energy. Equal pay. Migrant rights. Bicycle lanes. Refugee rights. Public schools. Public universities. Social security. Protect our beaches. Protect our workers. Protect our Internet. Protect love. Save our animals. Save our forests. Save our heritage. End torture. End the civil war. Build a public transportation system that works already!

How much longer are we supposed to fight – alone and secluded – for what is right? How much longer do we bang our heads against a Parliament that doesn’t give a damn? Over 300 laws they have in their drawers and they waste their time – time that we pay for with our sweat and hard work – to quarrel over issues that don’t even concern us. Better yet, they create issues and convince us that they are protecting us from each other. Who protects us from the daily struggle it takes to live in this country that millions of us have abandoned because it get more and more unbearable every day?

I have a feeling that thousands of you agree that enough is enough. And what’s different this time is that I have a feeling thousands of you want to do something about it. What better thing to do than take back Parliament? Why do we have to fight against a lazy, inefficient, dysfunctional Parliament that will never give us our basic socio-economic rights? Our basic human dignity? Why does Parliament have to be ruled by war lords and billionaires and dynasties of the same families replicating the same incompetent sectarian crooks that feed on the hatred of their own people?

We can imagine a better quality of life for ourselves and our children and our brothers and sisters. We can find it in our hearts to translate this (sometimes inexplicable) love for Lebanon into a revolution that gives victory to the poor and the wronged. We can rise above $100 bribes and family loyalties and herd mentality to put our votes where our hearts really are. We can find and vote for MPs that are young and secular and progressive and hard-working and feminist and independent and intelligent. We can take back Parliament – the highest legislative authority in the country – and set it back on its original mission: to organize the lives of its people in the best possible and most egalitarian way. We can convince everybody around us. We are the majority and there is not a single person suffering today from unemployment or poverty or stolen rights or that huge, enormous feeling of helplessness and depression that will not want to hold on to the dream that change is possible.

I have a feeling that our time has come.

And what else does one do with feelings but run?

This is a translation of Farfahinne’s post: مشروع قانون حماية المرأة من العنف الأسري بعد التسريبات: تشويه ما بعده تشويه

Violence against women happens in two complimentary spheres. In the first, a number of cultural, political, and economic values and laws create an environment of violence in the public sphere. And in the second, violence is perpetuated privately within the family. They compliment and complete each other. For instance, laws and policies that discriminate against women economically stem from an attitude that places women in a traditional role within the family as house workers and not bread winners. And thus a woman is deprived of her right to insure her children with social security unless her husband is handicapped or deceased.

Families in Lebanon are engulfed in a shroud of holiness. What happens within their structures – even when violent – remains within a family. Like my neighbor who thought it a curse that his wife only bore 3 girls and would beat them for the stupidest reasons and drag them by the hair down the stairs. Their cries for help would fill the neighborhood for years until they grew up and found an escape, each in her own way. The neighborhood adapted to these cries, got used to them and eventually got bored with them. To many, they became a repetitive symphony that provided immunity from any attacks of conscience for ignoring the painful cries.

In Lebanon, women’s organizations have struggled for years to release violence against women from the captives of the private sphere, to find mechanisms to protect women. The law to Protect Women from Family Violence, presented to the government by Kafa, was the culmination of years of this hard work. It was formulated after years of listening to thousands of complaints from women who were beaten and raped by their spouses and fathers. It was put together based on research from hundreds of counseling and legal support cases. The proposed law is particularly for women because it saw that Lebanon’s penal and personal status laws awarded men with many privileges and that there should be a law that protects women in order to tend to the grave imbalance between women and men in family structures. It aimed to fight gender-based violence, to fight the violence that happens against women for the sole reason of them being women.

And so the law was supported by dozens of women’s and civil society organizations and presented to the government. It was then passed on – with little resistance – to Parliament, which then designated a side committee to study the law and then pass it on to a vote in Parliament. The law has been with the committee for 6 months although their deadline was 3 weeks.

Today, we have word that the committee has two weeks to finish its study and that it has already made terrible amendments that will actually take us hundreds of steps backwards.

The entire ethos of the law has been changed from one to protect women to one to protect all the members of the family from violence. It has, therefore, become entirely void of the gender dimension – despite all the studies and research and testimonies that prove that the problem of violence within families is a gender-based problem.

Some forms of violence have been deleted entirely in Article 3 – most importantly marital rape – which, in this maimed version, is not considered a form of family violence.

The procedure of reporting violence has been changed to prevent anybody from initiating a complaint via reporting it (which means that I cannot call up the police and report my three friends being beaten up by their father).

And perhaps the most dangerous of these alterations is the addition of Article 26 which gives priority and superiority of judgment to the personal status (i.e. religious sectarian) courts in case of any clash between the two laws. With this article, religious courts have the prerogative to judge if the act is considered violent and, therefore, if it should be criminalized or not. This article also discriminates among women in the implementation of the protection law because it will change according to religious denomination. And it’s considered a blow to the Child Protection law which has come under attack recently with demands to return matters of violence against children to sectarian courts as well.

And so, a law like this, in its distorted version, no longer achieves its intended result which was the protection of women from family violence and the open admission from the State that violence against women is a crime punishable by law, which would help fight the dominant cultural social values that justify violence against women.

The struggle is clear today between forces that are working with all their might against civil society to impose religious courts as the fundamental reference for family matters and forces trying to place the Lebanese State in front of its civil duties to protect women form violence.

Women’s organizations and namely Kafa have proven to be patient and persistent. Today, the law faces the grave danger of being born dead or maimed (at best). Women’s organizations and civil society – everybody who is fighting for a civil space, a civil state, civil laws – must fight to the bone for this law that will save many from misery and save many from murder.

You can read the full post in Arabic about the Lebanese Parliament vote to cancel Article 562 of the Penal Code that offers reduced sentences for “honor” crimes.

The Committee for Administration and Justice, headed by MP Robert Ghanem, had raised the recommendation to cancel Article 562 back on May 16, 2011. The matter was put to a vote as the last point on the agenda of the legislative parliamentary meeting yesterday. Some MPs argued against the annulment: Butros Harb, Samir El Jisr, Imad El Hout, and Ali Fayyad. Others argued for removing Article 562: Sami Gemayel, Elie Keyrouz, Antoine Zahra, Marwan Hamadeh, Ghassan Moukhaiber, and Elie Aoun, and their arguments were good.

The vote finally passed FOR and the article should now officially be removed from the Penal Code. I could not find information on the voting numbers – I will post those when I do. Nayla Tueni and Gilberte Zouein (who represent half of the women in parliament since we only have four) were not even present.

It is important to note that Saada Allaw from AsSafir had written an article objecting to the annulment of Article 562 without looking at Article 252 as well. Article 252 allows for reduced sentences on crimes committed in a state of rage. She argues that many judges in Lebanon would frame “honor” crimes as ones committed in a state of rage and criminals could still benefit from reduced sentences. Although she is right, I don’t think we could have a Penal Code that does not distinguish between pre-meditated murder and second degree murder. So I am not sure what the solution would be – perhaps to forbid its use when it comes to gender-based violence. Thoughts?

The important thing now is that this small and long overdue victory does not take our eyes off the crucial battle of sending the bill to Protect Women from Family Violence into Parliament for a vote. It is right now still in the Special Committee and might be vetoed through the pressure of religious groups. “Honor” crimes are a direct result of the vicious cycle of gender-based violence going unpunished and remaining a taboo in Lebanon. So if we’ve agreed to cancel those, we might as well install protective laws against violence all together.

In all cases, congratulations to the women’s movement on this victory