Opposition Brushes Off American Rights Report on Lebanon

Source: The Daily Star, 13-03-2008
BEIRUT: A US State Department report on the state of human rights in Lebanon received mixed reactions from Lebanese politicians on Wednesday. The US State Department issued late on Tuesday its yearly report on the situation of human rights across the world, including in Lebanon.
"The Lebanese opposition, backed by foreign powers, is still obstructing the election of a new president in Lebanon," the report said. "Efforts to block the Lebanese government are backed by foreign powers," the State Department report added.
The report added that the progress toward democracy and respect for human rights in Lebanon was still facing a fierce campaign of violence and political assassinations.
"These people should be the last ones to talk about human rights," opposition Free Patriotic Movement MP Nabil Nicholas told The Daily Star on Wednesday. "Let them pay attention to the thousands of homeless in New York first."
Nicholas said the opposition sit-in in Downtown Beirut and the protests staged by the opposition against the government, both of which are mentioned in the report, "are done because we are demanding our basic human rights."
As for prison conditions, the report said Lebanon's jails did not meet minimum international standards, adding that they were overcrowded, and sanitary conditions, particularly in the women's prison, were very poor.