Lebanese protest anal exams on suspected homosexuals

Dozens of people demonstrated outside the law courts in the Lebanese capital on Saturday to protest the use of anal "tests" on men suspected of homosexuality, which is a criminal offence in the Arab country. The rally followed a July 28 police raid on a gay venue in a working class district of Beirut when 36 men were taken into custody and forced to undergo the examinations, reportedly to determine their sexual orientation.

Lebanon-based HELEM, considered the Arab world's leading lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights group, called for the rally under the slogan: "Stand up against the tests of shame, vaginal or anal." It also voiced solidarity with women subjected to so-called "virginity tests."

"We’re here because we want a clear statement from the ministry of justice that these kind of tests should be completely abolished and punished by the law," said participant George Azzi. "The syndicate of doctors has declared these tests are irrelevant scientifically and it’s illegal for doctors to do these tests, but that doesn't mean police can't still request it," he said.

Ynetnews

The women clearing Lebanon of cluster bombs

Only up close does it become clear that some of the bulky figures in armoured vests scouring the fields of southern Lebanon for unexploded cluster bombs are wearing hijabs under their protective helmets.

Once local teachers, nurses and housewives, this group of women are now fully trained to search for mines and make up the only all-female clearance team in Lebanon, combing the undergrowth inch by inch for the remnants of one of the most indiscriminate weapons of modern warfare.

Leading the women in the field is Lamis Zein, a 33-year-old divorced mother of two and the team's supervisor. She was one of the first recruits for the team, which was set up by the de-mining NGO Norwegian People's Aid (NPA).

"When I heard they were recruiting I applied straight away," said Zein. "At the beginning men were surprised to see us in the field, wearing the same protective equipment as men, doing demolitions of bombs like men. But we work together well as a team of women. We share things that we wouldn't with male colleagues. We are good at what we do and we are showing that women can do any kind of job."

Their painstaking task became necessary five years ago this week, after Israel rained cluster munitions on southern Lebanon to a degree the UN condemned as a "flagrant violation of international law".

The Guardian

Israel 'angry' over UN report on Nakba deaths

Israeli officials are allegedly boycotting a UN official in Lebanon after he wrote a report criticising the country's response to a border incursion by Palestinians protesters in May. Media in Israel reported on Wednesday that the government had cancelled a visit and cut ties with Michael Williams, UN special co-ordinator for Lebanon, in response to the report.

The Lebanese Armed Forces said seven people died and 111 were injured in the protest on the anniversary of what Palestinians refer to as the Nakba or "catastrophe", their term for the founding of the Israeli state in 1948. The incident took place near the border village of Maroun el-Rass and was the deadliest in the area since the Israeli-Hezbollah war in 2006.

The leaked confidential UN report criticises the Israeli army for using disproportionate force by firing on protesters. On Wednesday, Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, accused Israeli soldiers of using excessive force during the May 15 incident by firing live ammunition at unarmed Lebanese demonstrators trying to breach a border fence.

"The firing of live ammunition by the Israeli Defence Forces across the Blue Line against the demonstrators, which resulted in the loss of civilian life and a significant number of casualties, constituted a violation of
resolution 1701 and was not commensurate to the threat to Israeli soldiers," Ban said.

A preliminary report by the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon also accused the demonstrators, who threw stones and petrol bombs and tried to bring down a fence, of carrying out "a provocative and violent act," Ban said.

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Lebanese police send fleeing Syrians back to face Assad regime's violence

Syrians attempting to flee across the Lebanese border to escape the violent clampdown of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad are being rounded up and returned to an uncertain fate by Lebanese security forces, according to local residents.

In an attempt to escape a siege by Syrian security forces, hundreds of residents of the small town of Tell Kalakh – near the Lebanese border – placed provisions into plastic grocery bags and their wounded relatives onto cheap synthetic blankets and crossed into Lebanon, where they hoped to find safety with distant relatives and sympathetic residents of the northern city of Tripoli. Crossing the muddy and shallow Kabir river on foot within plain view of the Lebanese army checkpoint in nearby Wadi Khaled, the refugees and wounded made it to what they thought was the safety of Sunni Muslims in the area, who have long hated the neighbouring Syrian regime.

But according to witnesses, their relief was short-lived as almost all the refugees were rounded up within hours of their arrival over the weekend by Lebanese intelligence agents acting under orders to prevent Syrians from escaping the violent crackdown by Assad's Ba'athist regime.

"There were roadblocks everywhere," said Abu Rabih, who would not give his real name for fear of arrest. "It was impossible to hide who these people were, they were looking for Syrians escaping Tell Kalakh."

The arrested refugees were returned to the Syrian security services by daybreak, said residents and witnesses interviewed by the Guardian. "They caught most of them and sent them back through the crossing," said Abu Rabih, who runs a shop a few hundred metres from the illegal border crossing over the river.

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Israel murdered Hariri

In a much-anticipated televised speech, Hizbullah head Hassan Nasrallah on Monday night presented what he called proof that Israel was behind the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.
The Foreign Ministry dismissed Nasrallah's comments as "ridiculous lies" in a statement Tuesday.
“Since September 13, 1993, the date of the signing of the Oslo accords, Israel made up stories to convince former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri that Hizbullah planned to kill him,” Nasrallah said, according to a Walla news report of his speech.

Nasrallah said he spoke to Syrian President Bashar Assad a couple of weeks before Hariri’s assassination, and that Assad told him – according to Western sources – that the world wanted to see Syrian troops leave Lebanon. “That is the reason Israel killed Hariri,” Nasrallah said. “Israel wanted to get Syria out of Lebanon.”
As proof of his theory, Nasrallah produced a tape of a man named Ahmed Nasrallah, who had been arrested in 1996 for allegedly spying for Israel. “I met someone who worked with Rafik Hariri and I told him that Hizbullah wants to kill him (Hariri),” the man was heard saying in the tape, referring to an apparent attempt to turn Hariri against Hizbullah.

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Middle East on the Brink of Another War

What was first billed as a mere border skirmish took on a darker cast late Tuesday when Israel revealed that its sole fatality along the Lebanon blue line was its most senior officer on the scene. "It was a planned ambush by a sniper unit," Major General Gadi Eisenkot, chief of Israel's northern command, told reporters at an afternoon briefing. "This was a provocation by the Lebanese army."

Civil defense workers and Lebanese soldiers (below) carry an injured soldier in the village of Adaisseh on Tuesday. (Associated Press)

For a regional military superpower, Israel has demonstrated a considerable talent for casting itself as the victim. When its navy commandos killed nine activists on a boat looking to break the sea blockade on Gaza two months back, Israelis blamed the dead civilians for setting upon the underprepared boarders with cudgels, kitchen knives and broken handrails. But the death by gunshot of Lieutenant Colonel Dov Harari appears to support the Israeli version of events that brought on the most serious clash on the Lebanon border since a 34-day war erupted four years ago out of a more serious skirmish initiated by Hizballah, the guerrilla army some suspect was behind Tuesday's episode.

More on TIME and more here and on Washington Times