This text was initially published on the occasion of Manufacturing of Rights a pluridisciplinary colloquium in Ashkal Alwan, Beirut, 2015.

CASE #6

Date: 2013
Location: Lebanon

On Sunday, April 21, 2013, during the early hours of the morning, the mayor of Dekwaneh (a northern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon) decided to raid the LGBT-friendly “Ghost” nightclub. The raid came under the pretext that the nightclub had become a hotbed for homosexuals. The mayor concomitantly ordered the arrest of a number of Syrian expats present at the nightclub, one of whom was a transsexual, and dragged them to the municipal police headquarters where they were severely and repeatedly beaten, insulted, humiliated and harassed. Amid mockery and derision, two of the arrestees were forced to kiss each other for the amusement of municipal police members. The transsexual detainee was also forced to take all her clothes off and was photographed amidst the jeers of the entertained, allegedly to show proof of her gender or “trans-identity.”

All the municipalities’ actions were initiated locally without any prior coordination with the Public Prosecutor, in flagrant violation of the Lebanese Code of Criminal Procedure. No investigation on any offence whatsoever was made: no report was written and none of the arrestees were transferred to the Morals Protection Bureau or the Anti-Drug Bureau to face the charges filed against them. Yet, the Dekwaneh municipality proceeded, falsely and without any evidence, to prepare its report on the matter. The report mentioned the names of the arrestees who were openly accused of offenses that were not even investigated (mainly prostitution and drug abuse). The report was then hung on the nightclub’s door as a pretense for its shutdown.

According to public statements by the mayor, the purpose of the raid was not to repress crime (e.g. prostitution), but rather to banish homosexuals from the municipality’s district and “cleanse the Dekwaneh area” from those who purportedly did not belong there, stating that he did not want “half- men” and “half-women” in Dekwaneh’s district. The mayor’s behavior contained all the elements of a homophobic offense, at least in the sociological sense. Indeed, this view of the incident has been reflected in the reactions of many civil society members condemning it. In fact, a number of citizens and civil organizations filed a notice (denunciation) to the Cassation Public Prosecutor’s Office on April 30, 2013 against the mayor accusing him of 11 criminal offences (including: unlawful deprivation of freedom; criminal falsification of public records etc.).

The notice is a unique step in the history of Lebanese civil society activism in which the criminal prosecution pointed its finger in the opposite direction. Instead of victimizing homosexuals in the name of the law and public morality, the notice came as a charge against those who do not refrain from unleashing their homophobia and trespassing all limits. However, the Cassation Public Prosecutor did not act immediately to investigate the of- fences listed in the notice as per its standard procedure with serious offenses. Rather, it made a record of the notice and within two days transferred the case to Mount Lebanon’s Court of Appeal Public Prosecutor. The latter did not however initiate an investigation into the mayor’s actions to date. ¹