Monday , 24 July 2023
Background and Context
In June 2023, 33 Lebanese Members of Parliament (MPs) took to social media and made 60 statements regarding human rights.
This report does not include statements concerning the anniversary of the establishment of the Internal Security Forces in Lebanon (June 9), nor those related to Fathers’ Day (June 21), and Eid Al Adha (June 29). These statements were not considered as they do not pertain to human rights-related opinions and thoughts.
Methodology
Lebanese MPs made a total of 60 statements on Twitter and Facebook from their personal accounts. The statements were monitored throughout the entire month of June, from June 1 to 30, 2023.
The statements were categorized into various themes, which shed light on the following subjects:
Data Display
Throughout the process of data gathering, it is important to acknowledge that the information provided may not be entirely comprehensive. Nevertheless, despite any inherent limitations, the data collected enables us to formulate hypotheses concerning the discussion of human rights issues, with a specific focus on journalists’ rights and freedom of speech, within the public political discourse during June 2023.
Figure 1. Distribution of data across Members of Parliament
Figure 2. Distribution of data across political parties and groups
Figure 3. Distribution of data based on group type
Figure 4. Distribution of data across theme of statement
Table 1. Distribution of data across theme of statement and group name
Analysis
In June 2023, there was a slight increase in online statements made by MPs concerning human rights, with a total of 60 statements compared to the previous month’s 44 statements. Among the 60 statements in June, 18 were focused on the issue of impunity related to the Beirut blast case. Additionally, there were 20 statements addressing freedom of expression, of which eight were specifically related to the commemoration of Samir Kassir’s assassination on June 2, 2005, as highlighted in a separate column in table 1.
It is worth noting that out of the 12 other statements related to freedom of expression, four addressed the repression conducted by the Minister of Education against the activist Nisrine Chahine, while seven addressed the travel ban against Kuwaiti journalist Fajr El Said. One statement was related to free speech in general. In other words, almost all statements related to freedom of expression, commented on repressions (92%) were focused on cases of repression.
Three out of the nine identified topics focused on vulnerable groups within society: Syrian refugees (6 statements), Palestinians under occupation (5) and women (5). Additionally, the four statements relating to hate speech revolved around the burning of Quran pages that occurred in Sweden.
The statements can be ranked using two methods. The first method compares the total number of statements made by each political group, as indicated in Table 2. The second method involves comparing the percentage of MPs within each group who made statements. To calculate this, we determined the number of MPs who made statements within a specific political bloc and then calculated their percentage relative to the total number of MPs in that bloc, as illustrated in Table 3.
Table 2. Ranking based on absolute numbers - from the political group with the most statements to the one with the least
According to Table 2, two MPs from the Independence Movement, nine Change MPs and seven Independent MPs made statements during the month of June on various human rights issues.
Table 3. Ranking based on relative numbers - from the political group with the highest percentage of members who made statements to the one with the lowest percentage
Table 4. Top 10 Ranking of MPs who shared most statements from June 2022 till April 2023
In June 2023, MP Ashraf Rifi made the highest number of statements, totaling six.
When considering the cumulative number of statements shared since June 1, 2022, MPs Mark Daou, Halimé Kaakour, and Ibrahim Mneimneh maintained their positions as the top three MPs, as they have consistently done since January 2023.
The consistency of MPs’ statements is an important factor to consider. MP Daou has consistently made statements related to human rights in 11 out of the 13 months of monitoring. Similarly, MP Mneimneh and MP Kaakour have made statements in nine out of the 13 months.