Lebanon Makes WEF’s Top 20 Most Dangerous Countries
Lebanese people are usually ecstatic when the country makes it to a “Top Whatever” list. This time though, it’s a little less flattering. The World Economic Forum ranks 136 countries based on how safe they are for tourists. Lebanon was number 12 out of the top 20 most dangerous ones. The criteria are violence and terrorism, not petty crime.
Now, I know most of you will get furious and start coming up with conspiracies that this is to ruin the tourism season in Lebanon, but this list could be a nice wake up call to many of us suffering from the bubble syndrome of thinking skiing and swimming in the same day makes us the best country in the world.
Name One Road Rage Murderer in Jail
Just this week, a 24-year-old man called Roy Hammoush was gunned down because of a minor traffic incident. No leads so far. Remember that poor father who was stabbed, repeatedly, to death in Gemmayzeh and it was caught on camera? He’s still not sentenced… Does a week pass by without us hearing of someone being killed by a stray bullet or absurd traffic disputes or family feuds?
Sure, murders happen everywhere in the world, but the difference is, in other places, at least most or some of the murderers are sent to jail. Here, they roam free, while kids smoking pot are entrapped and jailed for absolutely no good reason when a non-violent, victimless “crime” is all they did.
Safety is for the Rich and Powerful
After a bombing, you see security step up in Lebanon. Usually, that means closing down or fortifying the street or neighborhood where a minister or public official lives. The rest of us just hope for the best and that the crazy cowards don’t choose the place we’re at to get their virgins from.
More resources are spent illegally breaking into phones and calling up everyone to come and pee in a cup, than following leads for possible terrorists plot in Lebanon.
Foreigners Get Arrested and Deported for a Joint
According to the Hobeich Precinct drug bureau, more than 60 foreigners are arrested for drug use every year, over 67% of which for hashish or pot. Foreigners means non-Arabs, since Arabs and Lebanese are grouped together in their stats. So, more than 50 tourists a year get arrested and have to go through our Dark Ages justice system and are often deported, for smoking a joint. That’s definitely not a country that’s safe for tourists.
Political Unrest and Fabricated Charges
When the people went to the streets to protest, the illegitimate government used forced urine tests to trump up charges to target activists. What does protesting have to do with drug enforcement? Why force protesters arrested, including minors, to pay for illegal pee tests cause you couldn’t charge them for sharing their frustrations peacefully in the street, while faced with a savage attack by security forces that included expired tear gas canisters and bombs, rubber bullets, live rounds in the air, water cannons, and that shameful wall they put up, then down, then up again.
In a country where the government fabricates charges against protesters, and still jails people for writing a status about a president, yet does nothing to guarantee the safety of its citizens from violence and terrorism, this country is not safe.
So
Sure, Lebanon might not be as bad as Yemen, Venezuela and El Salvador, but those countries are going through much more serious shit and catastrophes than we are. Bottom line is, if you’re going somewhere with friends, and a douchebag with tinted windows hits your car, there’s a very good chance you’ll end up in the morgue later, and a very little chance they will go to jail.
How many people have been shot while out on the night? On their balcony having a smoke? At an intersection in the capital? How many of those murderers were caught, and from the ones that were, how many are sentenced or behind bars? The answer is, not nearly enough.
If you think I’m exaggerating, imagine the worst happens to you, like an abusive husband beating his wife to death. Would you immediately call the cops? No, you’d consider your options, and think if calling them will actually help, or hurt the victim who often is told at police stations to “suck it up” and “go back to your husband” so that he can eventually kill her like so many innocent mothers, and to add insult to injury, gets custody of the abused and traumatized kids.
So, yeah, it’s not as safe as most of us like to think it is, and the big part of that blame lies on the government, busy wasting our taxes prosecuting status-posters, protesters and college kids smoking pot, instead of organized crime, terrorists and murderers.
