Lebanese Foreign Minister Nassif Hitti wants to meet Dorothy Sheah on Monday following a controversial interview with the Saudi television channel Al-Hadath during which she described Hezbollah as a “terrorist organization”.
Doroty Shean and Lebanese President Michel Aoun on June 11 in Baabda.
KEYSTONE
Lebanese diplomacy will summon the US ambassador to Beirut on Monday after outspoken remarks against the Shiite Hezbollah movement have been the subject of a controversial injunction by a local judge.
“Foreign Minister Nassif Hitti summoned US Ambassador Dorothy Shea tomorrow (Monday) at 3:00 p.m. (2:00 p.m. in Switzerland) in light of her recent statements,” said the ANI news agency.
In an interview on Friday with Saudi television channel Al-Hadath, Dorothy Shea expressed Washington’s “grave concerns” “over the role of Hezbollah, a terrorist organization”.
The Shiite movement has “siphoned billions of dollars that should have gone into government coffers (…) and hampered certain economic reforms that Lebanon desperately needs”, she accused, while the country is in the grip of its worst economic crisis in about 30 years.
Prohibition of interview
Saturday, an interim judge in the city of Tire (south), Mohamad Mazeh, decided to prohibit, under penalty of sanctions, the Lebanese and foreign media working in Lebanon from interviewing, for one year, Dorothy Shea, a decision immediately greeted by Hezbollah.
Lebanese authorities must “take immediate measures to compel this ambassador to respect international law,” said Hassan Fadlallah, deputy of the powerful Shiite party, on Sunday, referring to the Geneva Convention on diplomatic relations.
The judgment rendered by Mohamad Mazeh also sparked outrage among the media and on social networks, some seeing political pressure on the justice system and an attack on freedom of expression.
A judicial source told AFP that Mohamad Mazeh had “gone beyond his prerogatives”.
“Pathetic” attempt at censorship
Country of 18 religious communities, Lebanon is governed by a complex system of power sharing where Justice is often the subject of political and community tensions.
For the US State Department, this is a “pathetic” attempt at “censorship” on the part of Hezbollah.
Lebanese Information Minister Manal Abdel Samad for his part stressed the need to ensure press freedom.
Threat of resignation
Judge Mazeh, for his part, threatened to resign on Sunday if he were to be brought before the judicial inspectorate, after information to that effect relayed by local media.
The incident comes amid growing tensions between Washington and the Shiite party, which recently accused the United States of seeking to cause famine in Lebanon and of banning the inflow of dollars, the currency on which the Lebanese pound is indexed. .
(AFP/NXP)
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