On June 18, 2019, Facebook published that Lebanese Muslim social and political activist Muhammad ‘Awwad discovered that the municipality of Al-Hadath, a Lebanese town in Beirut’s southeastern suburbs, bans the sale and condo of homes to Muslims. As a result, Al-Hadath became a Christian metropolis at first, and Christians still dominate its municipality. However, these days, most of its residents are Muslim. Awwad wrote that he tried to hire a rental within the metropolis. However, the landlady advised him that the neighborhood authority prohibited renting to Muslims, a claim he later established with the municipal management.
[1] Subsequently, a recording of a communique between ‘Awwad’s spouse, Sara Ra’ed, and a worker in the municipality, who informed her that this ban has been in effect for decades, also went viral.
[2] Given the sensitive sectarian cloth of Lebanese society, the affair sparked an uproar on social media and responses from neighborhood leaders, Leb, anise MPs, and different senior officers. Many Muslims on social media attacked the ban as racist and unlawful. Lebanese Interior Minister Raya Al-Hassan said it contradicted the Lebanese charter, which sweepingly prohibits restricting belongings on a sectarian foundation.
Al-Hadath mayor George ‘Aoun, a Christian, hastened to rebuff the criticism and justify the metropolis’s policies, explaining that the ban has been in impact for many years and is meant to maintain the sectarian character of the city, which changed into the beginning Christian. He also claimed that Lebanese President Michael ‘Aoun and leaders of the Shi’ite actions within the country support this selection.
As a count of fact, there reportedly exists an unwritten settlement between the Al-Hadath management and the Shi’ite Hizbullah intended to preserve the sectarian identification of groups in Beirut’s southern suburbs. The Lebanese media also claimed that sectarian restrictions on residency exist in different places in Lebanon. The media buzz created through the affair triggered Al-Hadath’s Christian residents to stage a demonstration in aid of the mayor and his coverage.
[3] A few days after the demonstration, the flag of the Shi’ite Amal movement became hung over the municipality construction in the act of counter-protest.
[4] However, Amal leader and Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri condemned the act and clarified that he had ordered to analyze it. Berri expressed knowledge of the town’s Christian residents’ emotions and desire to keep their manner of existence and the prevailing social clothing.
[5] A survey of the responses to the well-known incident shows that they largely follow sectarian lines, with the supporters of the ban by and large Christian and its opponents commonly Muslim and Druze. This record affords translated excerpts from some of the responses utilizing Lebanese officials and within the
Lebanese press.
Supporters Of The Ban: This Is An Old Arrangement Made With Hizbullah, Crucial For Preserving Coexistence
In a June 21, 2019, interview with the Lebanese website elnashra.Com, Al-Hadath Mayor George ‘Aoun explained that the ban had been instated using the municipality already in 2010, while it has become recognized that, in view that 1990, 60% of the town’s houses were bought through Shi’ites.
He claimed that the ban was supposed to keep the city’s demographics range and was extensively supported by the town residents, in addition to using Lebanese officers, consisting of President Michel ‘Aoun and the leaders of the USA’s Shi’ite movements, Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri and Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah.[6] Noting that President ‘Aoun, in addition to Foreign Minister and Free Patriotic Movement head Gebran Bassil, had contacted him personally to express their aid,
[7], He added that the choice conformed to the charter and aimed to preserve coexistence within the city. He warned that if the ban changed to canceled, he might renounce.
[8] Al-Hadath resident Hikmat Dib, a member of the Free Patriotic Movement, additionally justified the policy and defined the heritage as the choice and the understanding between the municipality and Hizbullah. Since the Lebanese Civil War in the Seventies, Dib said Christians were leaving the city, sometimes due to persuasion or intimidation, hinting at Shi’ites who moved into the town and acquired homes there. “This scenario,” he defined, “forced us to signal [an agreement of] political understandings with Hizbullah.
The settlement was signed in 2006 beneath the non-public sponsorship of President ‘Aoun and Hizbullah Secretary-General Nasrallah and aimed to stop the emigration of Christians from the town, he stated.[9] Deb claimed that Nasrallah even asked Shi’ite traders and entrepreneurs to ignore the Al-Hadath vicinity, allowing them to maintain coexistence.
[10] Ghassan Hajjar, editorial director of the Christian-owned Lebanese Each Day Al-Nahar, wrote in a column that the ban changed into a practical and “nationally courageous” step due to the fact the town’s original Christian population had diminished and referred to that in Hizbullah-ruled regions similar bans have been in impact. He brought up: “Everyone has expressed his opinion [on this affair], whether they recognize it or not:
Secularists and fundamentalists, [and] folks that stay some distance from Al-Hadath and all regions wherein there’s coexistence, especially citizens of homogenous villages. Some were against it, and a few have preferred it; however, most did not base their positions on considerable arguments. The hole among the [Lebanese] charter and laws [on the one hand] and the realities of existence [on the other] are mammoth….”
