Jordan Times
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Journalists condemn
assassination of Lebanese lawmaker
By Mohammad Ghazal
AMMAN — Senior analysts and journalists in the
Kingdom on Monday condemned the assassination of prominent Lebanese lawmaker
Gebran Tueni.
The Lebanese deputy, who was also the director of An Nahar Arabic language
daily, was killed yesterday, along with three other people as his motorcade
drove through the industrial suburb of Mkalles, Lebanese police said. Another 30
people were wounded in the massive car bombing, which started a huge fire.
“This is a heinous crime in all the senses of the word, but this crime, as many
others before, carried out against journalists and people of the press are
doomed to failure,” Al Rai Chief Editor Abdul Wahab Zgheilat told The Jordan
Times.
“Tens of journalists have fallen as victims of oppression and political
assassination but this has never hampered journalism... as there continue to be
more journalists who are courageous and insist on exposing murderers, and
revealing and defending truth and human rights,” he added.
Zgheilat, who offered his condolences to the Lebanese government and Tueni's
family, said history would have no mercy on those who assassinated the Lebanese
deputy, who lived and died clinging to his beliefs.
Ad Dustour Chief Editor Osama Sharif, who said he had a close relationship with
Tueni's father, a former Lebanese ambassador to the UN, said he condemned this
criminal attack “as a journalist and a human being.”
Sharif, who noted that the profession of journalism faces a lot of pressures,
expressed concerns that the assassination of Tueni and many other journalists
would threaten the future of the profession.
“Tueni was assassinated because he belonged to a certain political spectrum,”
Sharif explained.
He noted that the timing of the assassination coincided with the issuance of the
Mehlis report, which posed a lot of questions.
German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, head of the United Nations International
Independent Investigation Commission (UNIIIC) probing the assassination of
former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, today delivered the second
installment of his report to the Security Council.
Meanwhile, Oraib Rintawi, a columnist and political analyst at Ad Dustour, said
Tueni's assassination was expected, especially following the assassination of An
Nahar columnist Samir Kassir in early June.
“I knew him for years. We had completely opposite political stands but recently
our political positions matched. He knew that his stance and insistence on the
freedom and independence of Lebanon would result in his death,” Rintawi told The
Jordan Times.
Describing Tueni as “a true defendant of the independence of media in Lebanon
and a great supporter of democracy in the country,” Nidal Mansour, head of the
Centre for Defending the Freedom of Journalists, underlined the importance of
hunting down the perpetrators of the crime.
“An end should be put to these crimes against journalists,” Mansour said,
refering to the murder attempt against TV presenter political talk show host May
Chidiac in September.