A Lebanese journalist has been arrested as part of a sweeping crackdown on Christian activists opposed to Syria's heavy influence on the nation, judicial sources were quoted by AFP as saying Friday.
They said army intelligence arrested Antoine Bassil, a correspondent for Saudi Arabia-funded MBC television, for questioning over the case of Tufiq Hindi, senior advisor to a banned group who was arrested earlier this month.
According to other reports, Bassil is accused of arranging a meeting between Hindi and an Israeli security official in charge of Israeli activities in south Lebanon during the Israeli occupation, which ended last year.
The As Safir paper on Friday cited prosecutor general Adnan Addum as saying that the interrogations of Hindi revealed he had a meeting in Cyprus with the former Israeli official, Uri Lubrani.
Bassil formerly worked for Middle East TV, which was run by the South Lebanon Army (SLA), the pro-Israeli militia that aided Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon from 1978 until last year, according to AFP.
Hindi, an advisor to the outlawed Lebanese Forces, has been accused of conspiring with an Israeli official to expel Syrian troops from Lebanon.
He remains in detention at the defense ministry since his August 12 arrest and has been barred from receiving visitors.
Hindi has reportedly admitted to contacting an Israeli official by phone from Paris with the aim of mounting an anti-Syrian campaign.
But Hindi's wife told AFP he had not visited Cyprus in the past five years.
Seventy-seven anti-Syrian activists were referred Thursday to Lebanese military courts, while opposition groups gathered to challenge the crackdown on dissidents after the Syrian-backed regime of President Emile Lahoud tightened its grip on the country, reported AFP.
Meanwhile, ministers vowed at a cabinet session Thursday to punish security agents who used excessive force against demonstrators.
Among those listed as arrested were retired general Nadim Lteif, coordinator of the Free National Current (FNC), whose leader General Michel Aoun lives in exile in Paris, and the banned Lebanese Forces' (LF) student leader Salman Samaha, judicial sources told the agency.
The military judge Abdallah Hajje is charging them mainly with "actions, writing and plans ... which could spoil relations with a brother state (Syria) and weaken national resolve, as well as striking the reputation of the Lebanese and Syrian armies."
The accused number around 250, all rounded up by the army since the beginning of the month.
Meanwhile, opposition groups gathered for a conference late this week aimed at closing ranks in their fight-back against the army and Lahoud's campaign to crush anti-Syrian sentiments, said the agency.
"The conference is meant to defend public freedoms and democracy, to confront police-state practices and state attacks against the opposition and democratic institutions," a conference organizer told AFP.
The Progressive Socialist Party of Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, as well as secular democratic and Christian groups, are seeking to end Syrian political dominance.
Thousands of Damascus' troops have been stationed in Lebanon since the 1975-1990 civil war.
More than 1,000 attended the gathering, a cross-section of political parties and associations.
The assembly issued a statement calling for the government "to confront the intelligence services over their seizure and lead them back under its supervision."
The statement urged civil and military court magistrates "to refuse to serve the screen of political power."
Jumblatt told the crowd that he had warned of such a doomsday scenario three years ago.
"Happily, we are however united to confront this situation," he told the audience, which included both Christian and Muslim parliament members, professional unions and human rights and student groups.
Bassem Sabeh, an MP from Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri's bloc, unleashed a scalding critique of Lahoud's regime at the meeting.
He said that he "feared seeing the presidency of the republic transformed into a supernatural force which discredits the Parliament and the government and strikes at our liberties."
The recent roundup of anti-Syrian militants -- which Hariri and many ministers said was carried out behind their backs -- and subsequent Lahoud-backed moves that reversed judicial reforms in Parliament have triggered fears the state is turning toward authoritarianism.
In a newspaper interview Thursday, Jumblatt said the government was doomed to collapse after the security dragnet and subsequent political developments, which he charged amounted to a "bloodless coup."
"[Cabinet] is finished after a period of severe weakness. It is not the position of the premiership that was hit, but the council of ministers," he told the As Safir paper.
"We do not want to rip the government apart today, but this will eventually happen," he said, explaining why he had not pulled the three Druze ministers out of the cabinet.
Since August 5, the army has targeted followers of the dissolved LF militia of imprisoned leader Samir Geagea, and those of Aoun who waged war on Syrian forces in Lebanon in 1989 before fleeing to exile in France.
A European Union (EU) delegation called for the Lebanese government to respect people's human rights and fundamental freedoms after visiting officials at Lebanon's Foreign Ministry.
Belgian ambassador to Lebanon Francoise Gustin said the EU hoped Lebanon "would continue to effectively respect these principles in the future."
Gustin said the EU group had demanded additional information "on the incidents these last days."
In an apparent move to cool off tensions, Lahoud received Hariri and House Speaker Nabih Berri on Wednesday for lunch, and invited Jumblatt to another lunch expected to be held next week.
According to the Daily Star, Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri returned from a trip to Syria on Thursday “optimistic” that a new era of cooperation among top leaders would restore credibility to state institutions.
Hariri kept tight-lipped about his two-and-a-half-hour meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad and a luncheon with Vice President Abdel-Halim Khaddam in Damascus, said the paper.
A statement following the weekly cabinet session admitted to “mistakes” in a crackdown on anti-Syrian activists last week, and vowed to bring to justice security agents accused of using “excessive force” in dealing with demonstrators outside the Justice Palace last week.
Significantly, continued the Daily Star, the session was chaired by Hariri, not President Emile Lahoud, as has been the norm except in cases when the head of state was out of the country.
According to the daily, Lahoud apparently chose to distance himself from anticipated government criticism of the security forces, the president’s main power base.
Syrian President Bashar Al Assad had applauded Lahoud and the Lebanese army after Parliament voted to amend the Criminal Code, in a move seen as a blow to Hariri, who had not been informed of the military crackdown on activists.
AFP said that Jumblatt was also expected to travel soon to Damascus.
The Daily Star said Thursday that Lahoud "remains Syria's favorite ally, regardless of Damascus' friendly ties with other leaders." – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
