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BEIRUT: Lebanon’s parliament should ensure that a draft media law it is considering upholds the right to freedom of expression, 14 Lebanese and international rights organizations urged on Tuesday.

This includes decriminalizing defamation, blasphemy, insult and criticism of public officials; prohibiting pretrial detention in speech-related violations; and removing onerous restrictions on the establishment of media outlets.

The calls come as the parliament’s Administration and Justice Committee is set to resume its discussion of the draft law on Tuesday.

On Aug. 31, members of parliament received proposed amendments to the draft law’s text, which, organizations said, included reintroducing pretrial detention and provisions that criminalize insult and defamation.

Rights groups, including Amnesty International, Committee to Protect Journalists, Human Rights Watch, and Reporters Without Borders, warned the suggested amendments would further restrict the work of media organizations that are subject to a legal complaint by prohibiting them from publishing materials about the complainant while judicial proceedings are ongoing.

They warned that Lebanon’s criminal defamation laws have been repeatedly used to target and silence government critics, activists and journalists in Lebanon, with journalists repeatedly summoned before security agencies for their work.

“Parliament should ensure that these practices come to an end by passing a media law that is entirely consistent with international human rights standards, including on the right to freedom of expression and media freedom,” the organizations said in a statement.

“Lebanon’s parliament should adopt a media law that includes rights protections that Lebanese rights and media groups have long fought for,” they added.

Rights groups, who reviewed the proposed amendments, opposed the reintroduction of pretrial detention, including “under aggravated circumstances, such as infringing on individuals’ dignity or private lives.”

Pretrial detention is only permissible in Lebanon for offenses that are punishable by more than one year in prison. It is expressly prohibited for media-related offenses in Lebanon’s existing media laws.

“If adopted, such an amendment would be a significant step backward for the protection of the right to freedom of expression and media freedom in Lebanon,” the organizations said.

They noted that the suggested amendment does not specify what “infringing on individuals’ dignity or private lives” entails.

“A vague law that leaves people uncertain of what expression may violate it has a chilling impact on freedom of expression, as people may self-censor out of fear that they might be subject to summons, pretrial detention or eventual prosecution,” they added.

“Vague provisions also leave the law subject to abuse by authorities, who may use them to silence peaceful dissent.”

Such a general legislative ban, they said, would constitute “a serious infringement on the right to freedom of expression.”

The suggested amendments would require licensed television stations to provide the Information Ministry and the National Council for Audiovisual Media with regular reports, including detailed information on the schedule of broadcast programming, and imply that electronic media be subjected to a prior licensing regime rather than a notification regime.

“Unless carefully crafted, such licensing requirements risk allowing for arbitrary decision-making over who can establish and operate media outlets and could facilitate violations of the right to freedom of expression and media freedom,” the statement said.

Lebanon’s parliament began discussing a new media law in 2010 after a former parliament member, Ghassan Moukheiber, and Maharat Foundation, a Beirut-based nongovernmental organization specializing in media and freedom of expression issues, submitted a proposal to amend Lebanon’s outdated Publications Law.

In January 2023, parliament established a subcommittee to study and amend the draft media law, a final version of which was submitted to the Administration and Justice Committee on May 27.

The draft law submitted to the committee in May included advances in protecting the right to freedom of expression in Lebanon, including abolishing pretrial detention and prison sentences for all speech-related violations. It also repealed criminal defamation and insult provisions from Lebanon’s penal code and military judiciary law.

The Administration and Justice Committee started discussions on the latest draft media law on July 29 and has held three meetings on the issue.

However, proposed amendments, introduced to parliament members on Aug. 31, were largely opposed by international rights groups for provisions viewed as restricting media freedom.

Rights groups urged the committee to make its discussions public to ensure transparent legislative debates and facilitate effective public participation.