Bodyguards protect Lebanese Prime Minister
Saad Hariri, center left with hand on mouth, from water bottles thrown
by demonstrators in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, March 19, 2017.
Demonstrators pelted the prime minister’s car with water bottles on
Sunday as protests against new taxes and a stagnant public wage scale
gained force in the city. Hariri got out of his armored convoy behind
the police line at the demonstration facing the government’s capital
building but could get no closer as protesters began throwing water
bottles and shouting “Thieves!”
Bilal Hussein
AP Photo
Lebanese anti-government protesters shout
slogans during a protest against newly-approved taxes, in downtown
Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, March 19, 2017. Thousands of demonstrators
descended on central Beirut Sunday to protest a broad tax hike they say
is unfairly targeting the country’s working classes. The Lebanese
government is paralyzed over a budget proposal that would hike over a
dozen tax rates to fund a salary hike for teachers and civil servants.
Bilal Hussein
AP
Bodyguards protect Lebanese Prime Minister
Saad Hariri, center, from a water bottle thrown by demonstrators in
downtown Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, March 19, 2017. Demonstrators pelted
the prime minister’s car with water bottles on Sunday as protests
against new taxes and a stagnant public wage scale gained force in the
city. Hariri got out of his armored convoy behind the police line at the
demonstration facing the government’s capital building but could get no
closer as protesters began throwing water bottles and shouting
“Thieves!”
Bilal Hussein
AP Photo
Lebanese anti-government protesters push riot
police as they try to reach the government headquarters during a
protest against new taxes, in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, March
19, 2017. Thousands of demonstrators have descended on central Beirut to
protest a broad tax hike they say is unfairly targeting the country’s
working classes. The Lebanese government is paralyzed over a budget
proposal that would hike over a dozen tax rates to fund a salary hike
for teachers and civil servants.
Bilal Hussein
AP Photo
By Ellen Francis – BEIRUT (Reuters) – Protesters in central Beirut
hurled empty water bottles at Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri on
Sunday when he tried to calm hundreds of people rallying against
proposed tax hikes. Carrying placards and banners, around 2,000
people flooded Riad al-Solh square to protest against tax hikes that
parliament is considering to fund public sector pay rises. “The road will be long … and we will be by
your side and will fight corruption,” Hariri vowed. But protesters
shouted “thief” and threw plastic bottles at the premier, who left soon
after.
On Twitter, Hariri later urged activists to form a committee “to raise their demands and discuss them positively”.
Protester Tania al-Khoury said the government
was “imposing taxes that constantly pile up, without providing anything
in return, no services, no public transportation, no medical care”. Scores of policemen barricaded the entrances to
the government headquarters and parliament during the protest, which
followed three days of smaller demonstrations in Beirut. Lebanese authorities are seeking to raise taxes
to help agree a deal on increasing wages for public employees, part of a
wider effort led by Hariri to approve the country’s first state budget
in 12 years.
Lawmakers approved several hikes last week, the
most prominent being a one percentage point increase in the sales tax.
Parliament still has to approve others in the coming weeks, and the
president must then sign off on all of them, before the new taxes take
effect. Protesters flocked to Beirut on Sunday, waving Lebanese flags and blasting the words “We will not pay” through their megaphones In recent days, various civil society groups and
some leading political parties have called for people to take to the
streets in protest.
The Christian Kataeb party and the Progressive
Socialist Party, led by Druze politician Walid Jumblatt, have staunchly
opposed the new taxes. The Iranian-backed Shi’ite Hezbollah movement has
also voiced reservations about some of the increases. Sunni leader Hariri became premier in October in
a power-sharing deal that saw Michel Aoun, a staunch Hezbollah ally,
elected president. Hariri, whose Saudi-backed coalition opposed
Hezbollah for years, formed a unity cabinet that includes nearly all of
Lebanon’s main parties. Aoun’s election ended a 29-month presidential vacuum in a country that had been crippled by political gridlock for years. “We had hopes for this new government, but
unfortunately … these politicians are still exploiting resources for
their profit,” said protester Mahmoud Fakih. “This is to refuse the
taxes that are being imposed on poor people.”
Signs and slogans accused parliament of theft
and people chanted for lawmakers to step down. “Take your hands out of
my pockets,” one placard read. Lebanon’s parliament has extended its own
mandate twice since 2013, a move that critics including the European
Union have condemned as unconstitutional. Current lawmakers were elected
in 2009 for what was meant to be four-year terms. Anger at Lebanon’s government has fueled
repeated protests in central Beirut over the last two years,
particularly in the summer of 2015, when politicians failed to agree a
solution to a trash disposal crisis. Piles of garbage festered in the streets,
prompting massive protests that were unprecedented for having been
mobilized independently of the big sectarian parties that dominate
Lebanese politics. (Additional reporting by Reuters TV; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
