Depositor Savagely Beaten during a Sit-in Against Banks
22-02-2022
Banking Corruption
Depositor Savagely Beaten during a Sit-in Against Banks
On Friday, February 18, 2022, a blatant attack on depositors by Lebanese security forces occurred in front of Audi bank’s main branch of Downtown Beirut. It resulted in critical injury of bank depositor Muhammad Al-Sharif, Jordanian, amid kicks and baton strikes to the head, neck, back and various parts of the body by Riot Control police. Al-Sharif had to be transferred to ER at American University of Beirut Medical Center after receiving first aid from Lebanese Red Cross paramedics.
Prior to a pre-planned sit-in, members of Depositors Outcry Association (DOA), their lawyers of United For Lebanon (UFL) and other supporters gathered at Martyrs Square of Downtown Beirut, where DOA President Alaa Khorchid announced the sit-in. Khorchid warned that, “It’s game over," for bank owners, board members and executive managers and that they had become legitimate targets for the angry depositors suffering from a rip-off of their life savings. He added that the judiciary and its law enforcement units proved useless, thus far, when it came to restoring the basic rights of the people under the law, leaving no other option for them but taking the law into their own hands. Such critical developments have been extensively elaborated earlier through a nine-month campaign by DOA and UFL, with emphasis on article 184 of the Penal Code on the right to self-defense, under the law.
From Martyrs Square, a protest had a stop point at Association of Banks in Lebanon in Downtown Beirut, before moving to a nearby block accommodating the buildings of BLOM bank and Audi bank headquarters. Furious depositors painted the walls of the buildings with slogans accusing Lebanese banks of theft, while bringing down their name signs. The protest was about to move to the residence of Prime Minister Najib Mikati where the sit-in was going to take place. Right then, escalation of events had led violence to break on the hands of a Riot Control squad. Around the route of the protest, hundreds of Internal Security Forces and Lebanese Army swamped the place especially at the entrance of bank buildings.
Despite the distraction caused by having Al-Sharif down, the protesters marched on and ended at Mikati's downtown lavish apartment residence. Khorchid and others voiced out words of resentment against Mikati, accusing his government of being an accomplice to bankers in crime. While depositors' legal agents of UFL pressed charges against the perpetrators of Riot Control later on, Khorchid announced through a speech Friday’s late afternoon that the rules of engagement with security forces members protecting those who committed the “Theft of the Century" had changed, given that the source of their payroll money was chiefly the savings of those bank depositors they were beating. He further warned of a full-blast confrontation underway, no matter the violence inflicted upon depositors. The coming days would have a lot to tell.