In the tightly packed crowds of Lebanon's biggest protest ever, young and old threw a party: Children streamed in from schools, men and women snapped souvenir cellphone photos and demonstrators directed barbed jokes at Syria.
"Papa don't preach, I'm in trouble deep," one sign jabbed, with a picture of Syrian President Bashar Assad looking ruefully at his father, former president Hafez Assad.
It was the broadest-based rally the opposition has held in its series of protests demanding Syria remove its forces from Lebanon and end its domination of the country. Druse rolled in from the mountains east and southeast of Beirut, Christians from the heartland in the northeast -- and Sunni Muslims turned out big from the north.
PHOTO: AP
In the crowd, blond women with sleeveless tops and plunging necklines mixed with conservative Muslim women in headscarves and modest robes. Protesters who came in from Lebanon's different regions could be picked out by their distinctive accents.
A powerful turnout was key for the opposition movement, whose credibility was on the line after the Shiite Muslim guerrilla group Hezbollah last week brought out a half-million people in support of Syria and after the Lebanese government brought back pro-Syrian Prime Minister Omar Karami, whose resignation had been the opposition's most concrete accomplishment.
And by all accounts, the opposition showed its pull on the street. More than 1 million people joined the rally, according to Lebanon's leading LBC TV station and some police officials. An Associated Press estimate put the number at over 800,000.
The coastal highway from northern Lebanon was turned into a one-way street, jammed with cars and buses bringing protesters. Flags fluttered from windows plastered with pictures of slain former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, with children leaning their heads out of windows to chant. Some people were stuck in their cars for up to six hours, others left their vehicles to walk.
Some even raced on speedboats to the seaside Martyrs Square.
Along with TV ads, the opposition sent out a flurry of e-mails and telephone text messages calling on people to show up. One message pointed to Karami's claim that the Hezbollah rally showed the government has the support of the majority.
"Prove him wrong by being at Martyrs' Square," the call flashed across cell phones and computers.
Everywhere in Martyrs' Square were the red and white bars and green cedar tree emblem of the Lebanese flags. Men and women painted their faces with the colors -- some with the cedar right over their noses. Bandanas, scarves, aprons and armbands bore the colors. And thousands waved flags, clambering over the minarets and scaffoldings of Mohammed al-Amin Mosque or up nearby buildings.
Children wearing backpacks came from schools, some brought by their parents. Thousands of people spilled over into nearby Riad Solh Square, where Hezbollah held its rally last week.
Lebanese soldiers stood idly watching the protest, taking no action to stop the demonstrators -- unlike in some previous opposition protests.
"It was as if they were part of the protesters," opposition legislator Marwan Hamadeh said.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
RSS