Lebanon: Stateless Palestinians

Written answers sent by Dr. Jasmin Lilian Diab, Director of the Institute for Migration Studies at the Lebanese American University, on October 6, 2022

 

Asylos: Do you know whether after acquiring a third nationality, i.e. not Palestinian or Lebanese, Palestine Refugees in Lebanon are still entitled to the travel documents issued by the Lebanese authorities or not?

 

Dr. Jasmin Lilian Diab: They are not entitled to these documents, as these documents are only issued as a temporary measure before obtaining citizenship – whether this be Palestinian (based on the right to return) or other. Once a third nationality is obtained visa requirements based on what that third nationality is.

 

Asylos: How do checkpoints affect stateless Palestinians’ free movement?

 

Dr. Jasmin Lilian Diab: Stateless Palestinians remain at risk of detention or arrest if they reach a checkpoint and do not have documentation. This is why a significant number of them opt out of moving from region to region entirely. Many stateless Palestinians avoid checkpoints entirely, and remain in the camps/informal tented settlements where they are located. Presently, though they are detained/arrested for not having documentation, the Internal Security Forces (ISF) has been known to release them after paying a fine. There are several main checkpoints across the country that do not move, such as those located in the North and South of the country, and ones before and after specific areas around the Beirut airport. These checkpoints are permanent (largely) and are on the radar of refugees, stateless persons and other people who wish to avoid them. The issue is with ad hoc checkpoints that are set up following political tension/a political event, or in the case where there is a perceived security threat, or the army/police is looking for a specific profile of people. In many cases, this is where the arrests happen (i.e. when the checkpoint is not routinely located there).

 

Asylos: According to you, how does residence status affect the possibility of returning to Lebanon? I.e., which right to return does each group of stateless Palestinian have?

 

Dr. Jasmin Lilian Diab: Palestinians that leave the country are always at risk of not being permitted to re-enter. This is less likely if they have the Lebanese government issued PRL document; however, there have been many cases where they have not been permitted to enter. For those who leave the country through irregular means, or following a rejected asylum application in a third country, they are typically not permitted to re-enter Lebanon.

 

Asylos: We found information relating to the obstacles to the protection of Stateless Palestinian children (risk of child marriage on the rise, children reported working to support the household…) but no information on the infrastructures that might be in place (on the state level or UNRWA level) to protect children from these types of harms. A single source mentioned:

 

“12.2. Palestinian refugee children, especially those living the camps, do not benefit from the Juvenile Protection Law or the Law on Domestic Violence

 

Article 1 (Paragraph 1) of Law 422/2002 on the protection of minors in contact with the law or those at risk deprives refugee children from its legal protection and jurisdiction to intervene for their protection due to the absence of due process inside the camps, where children are subjected to several forms of violations.”

 

(Source: Najdeh Association, Development Action Without Borders (Naba’a), Palestinian Human Rights Organization (PHRO) et al, “UPR 2020: Palestinian Refugee Rights in Lebanon”, July 2020, p. 7, last accessed: 1 September 2022)

 

→ Do you know the law this source refers to and can you explain the “absence of due process inside the camps” that it mentions?

Dr. Jasmin Lilian Diab: This law, though intended to cover the rights of all children from all nationalities, unfortunately does not extend to refugees as much as it outlines. This has been the case with Syrian and Palestinian children who largely fall outside the scope of the law in many cases. For children residing in camps, their largely “autonomous” nature, coupled with the inability of the Lebanese government to be actively present/engaged with them, renders it increasingly difficult for policies and legal frameworks to extend to stateless, migrant and refugee children. On a broader level, the overall culture of impunity in Lebanon, at all levels, renders it close to impossible to enforce the law, and has pushed many families to resort to negative coping mechanisms that the government strategically does not interfere with. i.e. sending children to work for instance, etc.

 

Asylos: Sources reported that the Minister for Labour, Moustapha Bayram modified in December 202154 the rules in place, authorising Palestinians to work in union-regulated professions.

 

Dr. Jasmin Lilian Diab: This was never enforced, and reportedly revoked.

 

Asylos: We found several sources relating to the exclusion of Palestinian refugees from the right to own real estate by law 296/2001. Are any steps currently being taken to improve Palestinians’ access to property?

 

Dr. Jasmin Lilian Diab: There are no actions in this regard – nor in the areas of access to bank accounts as well. This is the main issue here associated with property ownership. On a broader level, the “temporary” nature of the Palestinians stay in Lebanon (as the Lebanese government insists) prevents them from attaining their property rights. The Lebanese government views this possibility as grounds for them staying more “permanently”, and for this reason, this right will not be negotiated nor extended to them in the near future.

 

1. Correction on date: the decree in reference was published on 25 November 2021.

Interview with Mr Riad Al Khouri on October 7, 2022

 

Asylos: The first aspect where we are missing information on concerns the rights to a nationality, for children of refugees. We found a UNICEF report saying that birth registration procedures are complicated and costly. Would you be able to give us a more detailed description of the different steps it requires and the costs it implies?

 

Riad Al Khouri: I am familiar with this issue from the point of view of the nationality. The procedure in most Arab countries, including Lebanon, is for the children to inherit the nationality of their father, including in my country, Jordan. And this is the case with the refugees in Lebanon. If a Palestinian refugee woman marries a Lebanese man, then her children become Lebanese nationals. But if a Palestinian refugee man marries a Lebanese woman, then the children do not get Lebanese nationality, and this causes problems. Now about the birth certificate, I have no direct information, except to note that the cost of these procedures and the time they take in Lebanon is respectively high and complicated, including for birth certificates, but also covering other issues. Go ahead, please.

 

Asylos: Concerning freedom of movement, we found information concerning travel documents, notably reports by the Dutch government showing that Palestinian refugees in Lebanon can apply for a travel document from the General Security of Lebanon and that it requires an ID card and UNRWA registration cards. Does it mean that these travel documents are only available to Palestine refugees if they need to register with UNRWA, or is it also open to other types of status?

 

Riad Al Khouri: Now, our conversation is strictly about Palestinians, is that correct? We are not talking about Syrian or other refugees.

 

Asylos: We are not talking about Syrian refugees, but we are interested in Palestinian refugees from Syria who moved to Lebanon after the war.

 

Riad Al Khouri: Okay. In both cases, the procedures for these people, whether they are Palestinian refugees in Lebanon or Palestinian refugees from Syria who came to Lebanon at various times over the past few years, the procedure is difficult and complicated. And in any case, once you have this travel document, there is not much you can do with it in terms of travelling without a visa or obtaining a visa to travel.

 

Asylos: Okay, so your information relates to after the moment where you obtain this document, you are saying that it is not well-enforced.

 

Riad Al Khouri: Exactly. Before you obtain the document, there is a procedure to go through which can be time-consuming, and otherwise, it is not easy. After you obtain the document, there is not much you can do with it either to travel to other countries without a visa or to obtain a visa to travel to other countries. It is not a useful document.

 

Asylos: We have a section of the report concerning checkpoints and the way they affect stateless Palestinians’ free movement within Lebanon. We were wondering if you have more information on where the checkpoints are and what happens on arrest and which groups suffer discrimination, on which grounds.

 

Riad Al Khouri: I think that this may have been a problem in the past. It is no longer a major problem. Now, to clarify, we are talking about two distinct kinds of checkpoints here. One would be an official checkpoint of the Lebanese army or the Lebanese police. And there are few problems or restrictions in this regard, including arbitrary arrest. I do not think this is a real problem. The other checkpoints are informal. Lebanon is full of militias. These are not government bodies, they are private. They may, in a certain area, be representative of people. In other words, they are not just criminal gangs, they are somehow politically or socially based, and they may from time to time have checkpoints. But again, talking about the present, this is not a major problem. It was a major problem in the past going back to the 1970s in ‘80s, it would be possible to hold people or even imprison or even kill at these checkpoints, including Palestinian refugees. But this was 40 years ago. We are talking about the present. This is no longer a major problem.

 

Asylos: All right. Did I understand you correctly that you are saying that also the second type of checkpoints potentially held by militia and private armed persons are no longer a problem?

Riad Al Khouri: The quick answer is yes. First, there are fewer of them. They used to be extremely common. Now, there are very few of them. Second, they tend to be more relaxed today, more lenient, unlike in the 1970s and ‘80s, for example.

 

Asylos: Still concerning freedom of movement, are Palestinians free to leave Lebanon on a temporary or a permanent basis?

 

Riad Al Khouri: I do not have detailed information on this. It is correct to say that it is almost impossible for people who do not have the proper documentation to leave and then try to come back. Beyond that, the overall situation about residence, about travel, and about travel documents is still difficult. It has always been difficult. It was difficult in 1948 when these refugees first arrived.

 

Asylos: It is still difficult today?

 

Riad Al Khouri: It has not really changed.

 

Asylos: Moving on to our section on health. We have, of course, a very dense section on COVID-19 and how it affected the situation of stateless Palestinians in Lebanon. Are you aware of other communicable diseases affecting stateless Palestinians specifically?

 

Riad Al Khouri: Yes. There is now a major problem with an outbreak of cholera in Syria. This happened over the last few weeks. The reason for this outbreak is due to polluted water. The water is not clean. This is partly because of the fighting in Syria and the situation of violence and militias and foreign armies and so forth, partly because of the gradual breakdown of public services that has been going on now for decades, even before the fighting started. It is quite likely that this is going to spread to Lebanon if it has not’ spread already. And it will be from Syrians, including Palestinian refugees coming from Syria into Lebanon. Last month, the head of one of the Lebanese churches, the main Christian sect in Lebanon, the Maronite Catholic Church, called for the Syrian refugees to leave Lebanon. And included in that would be the Palestinians, refugees who came from Syria to Lebanon over the past few years. I believe one of the reasons is now the spread of disease, including cholera. And this is a very new issue. You will have to look in new sources. There will not be any research on it. It suddenly came up over the past few weeks.

 

Asylos: Now, moving onto the section on child protection and access to education for children, we found information relating to the obstacles to the protection of stateless Palestinian children, such as risk of child marriage, which is on the rise, children reported working to support the household, but no information on the infrastructure that might be in place to protect children from these types of harm. Do you know of any such infrastructures or protecting bodies?

 

Riad Al Khouri: First, it is important to note that this problem cuts across the Lebanese population. It is not just Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon, it is other poor people living there, particularly Muslims. Lebanon is divided into two major groups, Christians and Muslims. The Christians tend to be better off economically. They have a higher standard of living, including higher standards of public health in their communities, and community care about issues such as child labor, child marriage, et cetera. The Muslims - and most Palestinian refugees are Muslim - tend to have lower standards, more common child marriages, more common child labor, and others. And this problem has been getting worse over the past few years for economic reasons. Child labor is an obvious example. But child marriage is also an economic issue, whereby you sometimes get rich people, particularly from the Arab Gulf, coming to Lebanon and offering families substantial amounts of money for a young bride who may be below the legal age of marriage. And this is becoming more common now. I am Jordanian, as you know, and I have noticed this problem in the Syrian refugee community in Jordan, something that is increasing and is also becoming more common now in Lebanon. There are structures, institutions, and others, for their protection. I happen to have a friend in London who is the head of an NGO dealing with child brides. You’re welcome to talk to her. I think you can find her contacts on the web. Her name is Lakshmi. She is originally from India, but she was born and bought up in Switzerland, and now she lives and works in England. Her first name is Lakshmi, L-A-K-S-H-M-I, and the last name is Sundaram, S-U-N-D-A-R-A-M. Her organization is Girls Not Brides. It is a big, well-established, well-funded NGO based in London, and they may have more information on this. But as I said, this is becoming more common among the refugees in the region, including Syrian refugees in Jordan, and Syrian refugees coming to Lebanon, Palestinian refugees from Syria in Lebanon, and Palestinian refugees who have always been in Lebanon, and the explanation is economic. When you get extreme poverty, this kind of thing increases.

 

Asylos: Since the spread of COVID-19, NGOs based in Lebanon saw a rise in child marriage.

Riad Al Khouri: I do not know about that. I have heard no direct connection between COVID-19 and child marriage. If you found information on the web, that is fine.

 

Asylos: Thank you very much. Now, moving on to the section on access to the labor market, we found sources relating to legal restrictions on Palestinians’ rights to work in Lebanon, especially due to the ban on certain high wage liberal professions outside the camps. We also found information according to which amendments came to the Lebanese Labor Law and Social Security Law in 2010, which waived work permit fees for Palestinian refugees born in Lebanon. Does it mean that Palestinians still need to obtain a work permit to work, but do not have to pay for this government paperwork any longer? This would be a first question, and the second question, do you know what is motivating the passing of such amendments, if you are aware of them, and whether they had a positive impact on Palestinian refugees’ access to the labor market?

 

Riad Al Khouri: I am not familiar with the details of this issue. However, I can tell you that in manual labor, about low- skilled labor, there is absolutely no problem with Palestinians doing low-skilled labor completely informally for low pay. However, once you get into the more formal, official let us say, work, whether it is clerical or professional, then there is a problem, but I am not familiar with the details of the work documentation and so forth. I do know there have been campaigns in Lebanon over the last few years in the direction of liberalizing the work permit regime, but as I said, I am not familiar with the details. Back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, there was a specifically anti-Palestinian portrayal, public portrayal, public statements by either officials or by politicians and other public figures who were not necessarily officials but had a high profile. There was a powerful anti-Palestinian mood in the country in those days. This is no longer the case. Having said that, in the old days, the mood was also against the Syrians. And of course, as always in Lebanon, if you happen to be rich or well-connected, then this issue did not come up. Therefore, the Palestinian who is poor, the Syrian who is poor, is the one subject to criticism and discrimination today. The anti-Palestinian mood in specific is less than it was in the past. It is still there, but it is no longer a major issue compared, for example, to the anti-Syrian mood. And as I mentioned a minute ago, the Maronite Patriarch the Maronite Patriarch is a member of the Vatican College of Cardinals. He votes in the election of the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. So, this is not a junior figure. This is a high-profile figure with an international presence - he made a statement telling the Syrian refugees to leave Lebanon. And this is the feeling among people. No such statement exists now about the Palestinians.

 

Asylos: Would you say that stateless Palestinians are still more vulnerable to arbitrary arrest and detention by Lebanese authorities than the rest of the population?

 

Riad Al Khouri: They were. I do not think they are anymore. The Syrian refugees are more liable, more vulnerable. But the Palestinian case is no longer major issue. There is a key point here. Most Palestinians have a connection to an armed militia, an armed Palestinian group. They were practically running the country in the late 70s, early 80s. They are still there, and they are powerful inside the refugee camps. And they have influence outside the camps. So, this is a counterbalance to the state and private militias in Lebanon. In other words, the Palestinian will directly or indirectly get protection from his own Palestinian militia, even though he is not a militia member. Somebody in his family will be. And there will be balance, let us say, to counterbalance the effect of a Lebanese militia or even Lebanese army or police.

 

Asylos: Would you say that this is the case only for Palestinians living in camps or also outside the camps?

 

Riad Al Khouri: Every Palestinian somehow has a connection, the ones in the camps more so because the militias are openly active inside the camps, according to agreement with the Lebanese government. Outside the camps, it is more subtle. It is more indirect, but it is still there.

 

Asylos: Do you have any information on harmful detention or the types of conditions in detention for Palestinians?

 

Riad Al Khouri: I do not think there is any major difference today in Lebanon between conditions of detention. You are now talking about government prisons and government detention, yes ? I do not think there is any difference between how a Palestinian is in jail and how a Lebanese or a Syrian refugee or anybody else is.

 

Asylos: Moving on to the section on access to justice and state protection, do stateless Palestinians reach out to the police in case they have a reason to do so? And if not, why won’t they?

Riad Al Khouri: If we are talking about normal criminal and public security issues, yes. I do not think there is any difference. If somebody’s house is subject to robbery and he is a Palestinian, he will report it to the police. If we are talking about things to do with politics about a militia, then no. It becomes more complicated. In other words, to repeat the example, if I am a Palestinian refugee, somebody robbed my home, then I will report it to the police in a normal way. There will be no discrimination or other problem. But if I am a Palestinian involved in a political dispute with another person, whether it is Syrian, or Palestinian, or Lebanese. And for example, there is armed conflict, I was subject to armed harassment for political reasons, then, yes, there would be a complication in reporting this to the police and the police acting. I think they would not get involved because, in the first place, the victim would not report the case. If he reported it, the police would at once realize that this is a political issue to do with militias, and they would not get involved. Do not forget that in Lebanon, the police and the army have tended to have weaker powers than in most other Arab countries. Most Arab countries have strong security and military structures. Lebanon is the major exception. So, the police and the army in Lebanon are not as powerful as they are in other developing countries. And therefore, if a security or political issue arises, then the police would not be involved in the same way that they would in another Arab country where this would not be acceptable.

 

Asylos: Have you known of prosecutions and potential convictions of individuals who might have humiliated, or discriminated, or taken violent actions towards Palestinian stateless persons?

 

Riad Al Khouri: The quick answer is no; I personally do not know of them. But you must understand something. I am not a refugee, and I belong to a certain socioeconomic class such that I do not interact very much with poor people in general or with refugees. I am familiar, partly because of my work, partly because of my background, but I personally do not know of examples of discrimination or other problems facing Palestinian refugees in Lebanon with the authorities, with the police, and security. I suspect that they exist. But again, this is not as severe as it was in the 1970s and 1980s.

 

Asylos: Thank you for your transparency. The question was hinting at media coverage, for example, of such a case that might have come to your attention. But I understand from your answer that this is not the case.

 

Riad Al Khouri: The media in Lebanon is no longer really interested in these issues. The media is now more interested in the Syrian refugees.

 

Asylos: Do you know whether human trafficking disproportionately affected stateless Palestinians?

 

Riad Al Khouri: You must understand something. Among poor people and among Muslims, child marriage is not such a drastic issue. It is normal. If a rich man comes to you and wants your 12-year-old daughter, who is nevertheless biologically a woman. If she is no longer biologically a child, she is biologically a woman, then there is no severe problem in having her married, particularly if the husband is rich and he offers the family a good sum of money. And quite often these marriages end up being happy.

 

Asylos: A question on hardships faced by specific profiles of stateless Palestinians. So, we are trying in the report to uncover the situations of specific groups such as persons with disabilities, LGBTQ persons, Palestinians, as well as people with criminal convictions, for example. And we could not find any statistics recorded on the incidents of stateless Palestinians with disabilities and the form of disability. Are you aware of whether this type of statistics is coming from the Lebanese state or by other organizations?

 

Riad Al Khouri: There has been a tendency in Lebanon over the past years to pay more attention to the problems of the Palestinian refugees. Paying more attention is the first step. Doing something is the next step. And that has not really happened yet. But at least there is more awareness among the Lebanese and inside the Lebanese state, the Lebanese government, Lebanese officials. Now a critical point to note here, because of UNRWA and because of international NGOs and for other reasons, Palestinians tend to be slightly better off in this respect than the Lebanese themselves. The Lebanese until recently had a much higher standard of living than most other Arabs comparable to Europe. Now the economy has completely crashed and the average Lebanese can no longer afford proper medical attention and so forth. The Palestinians are a little bit insulated from this, partly through their organizations, through UNRWA and through international NGOs.

 

Asylos: But if I understood correctly, not all Palestinians receive help from access to UNRWA services.

Riad Al Khouri: Yes. UNRWA has for years been suffering from financial and other problems. However, there is no comparable organization for the Lebanese people. The Lebanese people have Lebanese government services, whether they are health or other services. But these have suffered tremendously over the past few years because of the weakness of the Lebanese state and for economic reasons also.

 

Asylos: Do you have any idea how stateless LGBTQ Palestinians are living in Lebanon?

 

Riad Al Khouri: I do not know much about this topic. Lebanon has a better record than most Arab countries about such people. But there is still discrimination. And the discrimination cuts across nationalities. Whether you are Lebanese, Palestinian refugee, Syrian refugee or other, there is discrimination, particularly among the Muslims. And most Palestinian refugees are Muslim. There are Christian Palestinian refugees, but their situation is much better than that of the Muslims, including assimilation, getting Lebanese nationality, and other matters.

 

Asylos: Are you aware of any added penalty, for example, deportation for stateless Palestinians who committed offenses in Lebanon or outside of Lebanon?

 

Riad Al Khouri: I do not think it is legally possible to deport a Lebanese-based Palestinian refugee. They are refugees. They fled Palestine and came to Lebanon. Lebanon does not deport such people.

 

Asylos: We reached the last section on political participation and protests. Can Palestinians gather to protest, or hold a political office in Lebanon? Do you know stateless Palestinians who ever managed to become public political figures?

 

Riad Al Khouri: The quick answer is no. However, before 1948 I know from my own personal experience with family and friends, among others, the line between Palestinian and Lebanese was not serious. There were intermarriages, business partnerships, and other relations, so that today you have people in Lebanon who are politicians or in office who are originally Palestinian. However, these are people-- A, they are bourgeois; they are not poor people. And B, they were Lebanese citizens before 1948, but they are originally Palestinian. And this point appears. A Lebanese will say so and so is originally from Palestine, even though he was born and brought up in Lebanon with Lebanese nationality. They will still regard him as originally Palestinian. Having said that, they can be in positions of responsibility or power like Lebanese who made money, which is the key thing in Lebanon. If you are rich, then all these other issues become secondary. Now, about the poor Palestinian refugees, I do not know of cases where they have become part of the Lebanese society, political system, and so forth. They may have power or a high profile within the Palestinian camps and in the Palestinian community, but not outside.

 

Asylos: considering the first group you are talking about, people of Palestinian descent who climb the ladder within those Lebanese political institutions, would you say that they entered the majority political institution, or do they remain in the opposition?

 

Riad Al Khouri: This depends more on the sects. I mentioned minutes ago. The most powerful sect in Lebanon is the Maronite Christian sect which is under the Vatican. Somehow, under the Vatican. They are the sect of the commander of the army and the president of the republic. The other sects, including the Muslim ones, have, informally or formally, access to certain positions in the state - certain power. The Palestinians tend to be of the Sunni Muslim sect and as such there may be intermarriage or business partnerships with Lebanese Sunni Muslim. And as I mentioned a minute ago, people from these groups before 1948, who became Lebanese, married Lebanese, or had a strong business presence in Lebanon, may today have power as individuals or families. But for the Lebanese refugee today from a poor background, to become part of the Lebanese political structure is almost impossible.

 

Asylos: According to you, do stateless Palestinians experience any form of reprisals because of gathering, protesting, or gaining a public profile for speaking on a political issue. Do you remember any gathering specifically around the identity of Palestinians? Palestinians who would gather publicly to make their cause visible. And in this case, were they arrested, detained, harassed in any form?

 

Riad Al Khouri: This was the case in the 1970s and 80s. It is no longer the case. Palestinians might undertake demonstrations inside the camps. And you must remember, the camps are officially or otherwise, a state within a state. The Lebanese government, Lebanese security, Lebanese public services do not work in the camps. The camps can be quite big. We are talking about tens of thousands of people in one camp. And there are camps around Lebanon. Outside the camps, almost nothing.

Interview with Mrs Katherine Harbord on October 13, 2022

 

Asylos: My first question relates to the legal and policy framework and its implementation in Lebanon. We found information on rights to nationality for children of stateless Palestinian parents. We have notably an excerpt from a UNICEF Lebanon report on the situation of children and young people in the Lebanese crisis from 2022, referring to complicated and costly birth registration procedures. Can you give us a more detailed description of the different steps it requires and the cost it might imply?

 

Katherine Harbord: So I don't know what the cost is. But the reason I think that it's described as complicated particularly is because it's a very bureaucratic process, or at least to European eyes, it's a very bureaucratic process that requires lots of forms and authorisation and you need to get this form stamped, and then you need to go away and that form entitles you to another form and the back and forth. And because of the problems of the state structure in Lebanon, particularly at the moment, because of the financial crisis and other things that are going on, I think this just compounds the problems. So I don't know how many steps there are. It's been a little while since I last talked with someone about this, but my understanding was you needed to register the birth sort of locally and then obtain a form, take that to the district office and register it there as well. And then after that it kind of goes to be dealt with at a higher level. But I don't know the exact steps of it. It's quite a prolonged process. It sort of takes months rather than weeks is my understanding. But that also may be not because of inherent the process itself, but more because of the other problems involved in interacting with state structures in Lebanon. And it doesn't confer registration of birth. You need to do it like it's a requirement to do it, but it doesn't necessarily convert any benefits or status on the child. If you're a stateless Palestinian refugee yourself and you register your child, they don't receive, for example, Lebanese nationality or something like that just by virtue of being born in Lebanon. And once you have the wrong in inverted commas status on your registration card or your ID documents that causes problems for everything else whether it's accessing hospitals or employment or education.

 

Asylos: The next question relates to freedom of movements. We found reports by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs that builds on confidential sources and informs us that Palestinian refugees in Lebanon can apply for travel document from the general security, but that requires an ID card and an UNRWA registration card. On the other hand, if this person acquires a certain nationality other than not Palestinian or Lebanese, the person is no longer entitled to the travel documents issued by the Lebanese authorities. Can you elaborate on this?

 

Katherine Harbord: Sure. I last spoke about this perhaps two years ago with somebody that I knew who worked at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who worked in a fairly low level but processing these kind of queries, who wanted ro remain anonymous. Without pointing me to a legal paragraph, what they said confirmed that applying for travel documents requires an ID card and an UNRWA registration card. The problem is of course that not all stateless Palestinians are necessarily eligible to be registered with UNRWA. So if you are UNRWA-registered and you have a Lebanese ID, then you are eligible to apply for a travel document. If you already have a travel document from somewhere else, for example, an Egyptian travel document, of course, you aren't eligible for a Lebanese travel document. You must travel on your Egyptian equivalent or your Jordanian equivalent or whatever. So it's a solution purely for Lebanese registered, UNRWA-registered stateless Palestinians with no other nationality or any kind of travel documents. It also isn't automatic. So just presenting your ID card and your UNRWA registration card doesn't entitle you to receive these documents, but it entitles you to be considered to receive these documents. So it's possible and assuming there are no security issues for this individual, it's my understanding that these are granted, but it's certainly not automatic. And if you hold any other travel documents or indeed another nationality, then you aren't entitled to be considered for these. So it's a very small subset of 1948 refugees and their descendants only. If you're a 1967 refugee, it's technically possible, but my understanding from this contact was that ordinarily, these people aren't able to move freely out of Lebanon because of it's very difficult for them to register with UNRWA. Difficult to impossible. My contact was speaking about how it works in practice. I don't know what they would consider as a “security issue”, but I made the assumption this was a case that also the individual involved was suspected of belonging to militant, banned groups. So I assume he meant in that context. But of course, there is a difference also between somebody who is considered to be a security issue and that actually is a security issue. And I think I don't suspect the bar is as high as that. So although this was in connection with, like I say, somebody suspected of being part of a banned group, I suspect the bar in practice would be lower than that, not necessarily anyone who has come to the authority's attention, but I would imagine it could be expanded out to include kind of criminal concerns as well. But that is supposition.

 

Asylos: Do you know the proportion of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon who do not have registration with UNRWA and were still able to access travel documents?

Katherine Harbord: I mean, I would assume it is vanishingly small, but no, I don't even know who would have those figures.

 

Asylos: Moving on to the subject of checkpoints. Do you have any information on where checkpoints might be located, who tends to be arrested and what happens on occasions of arrests?

 

Katherine Harbord: So I have a very little bit of information, but this relates to checkpoints in the north, near to the camps near Tripoli. What I have been told by stateless Palestinian asylum seekers from Lebanon is that Lebanese armed forces checkpoints or Lebanese police checkpoints are not much of a problem any more, problems rather come from militia, Hezbollah and others. It was certainly my interlocutors’ understanding that they felt that Palestinians, those with Lebanese registration or Palestinians from Syria, were disproportionately being detained at checkpoints and sometimes stripped of their freedom of movement, sometimes detained. Generally speaking, my understanding is that they will be arrested or detained the first time and usually either given a warning, sort of, "We don't want your sort here, or you can't pass through here." And if they persist, then they might be sort of roughed up a little bit, slapped or beaten. This was corroborated by three individuals that I've spoken to separately about this in the last few years. As I say, they were all connected with the Tripoli region. But I heard similar stories from each of them, which led me to kind of conclude that there probably is some consistency. In one case, the man that was detained was being beaten. He was actually beaten quite badly, and this was because he was a Sunni man who was married to a Shia woman and it was a Shia militia that detained him. So the problem, in that case, was not his Palestinian identity if you like, but rather a sectarian question. All of them felt they were being discriminated against because they were Palestinians, but there may also be other elements to it. It may not be quite as straightforward as that. I've heard of one person who was arrested but this is going back about five or six years. He was arrested by the police. He was a non-ID man. He was ostensibly arrested because of his lack of ID and kind of suspicion of illegal status or something like that. He was removed to a detention centre, not exactly prison. He reported ill-treatment. And his family was able to secure his release through payment of a bribe. And again, he felt that his status as a non-ID Palestinian was behind this and that his arrest was an opportunity for a bribe. Certainly anecdotally based on the numbers of persons I talked to on this matter, but Syrian Palestinians perceived that they experience more discrimination than other Palestinian groups and receive more verbal abuse and sort of racist “behaviour.” There’s a lot of prejudice against them. There’s obviously a lot of prejudice against stateless Palestinians, full stop, especially in Lebanon. But this is kind of magnified for the Syrian Palestinians.

 

Asylos: The detention that you mentioned, where would they take place if not in prison?

 

Katherine Harbord: So my understanding with the militias was that they detain people either at the checkpoint or at a quasi-military base. With the police, the man who was detained was taken first to a local police station and later to a detention centre in Beirut.

 

Asylos: Continuing on the question of freedom of movement, we talked about travel documents. Let’s say a stateless Palestinian managed to get out of the country, how would it be possible for them to return to Lebanon? To what extent would their specific status influence this possibility of them to come back at all?

 

Katherine Harbord: This is information I've heard from one person plus one person who has experienced this. This individual told me that if you have received permission to live outside of a camp rather than at your registered address which would be in one of the camps, then it is possible for you to go and return. But his opinion was that outside this specific case it would not be possible. Or if you don't have residence at all, you won't be able to return. And he claimed that it's more difficult for those who are residents of camps than those who are permitted to reside outside.

 

Asylos: Moving on to the health section, we found a report mentioning increase of viral hepatitis A, beside, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic. Are you aware of such an increase or of other communicable diseases affecting the person specifically?

 

Katherine Harbord: I would be really interested to know this answer also.

 

Asylos: Okay. We found, of course, information on the mental health issues that affect person refugees in Lebanon, especially after COVID-19 pandemic and the economic crisis. Would you want to point us to any type of source that might have more specifics on this?

Katherine Harbord: I would be really interested to know this answer also.

 

Asylos: Moving on to child protection and access to education for children. Of course we found much information on the obstacles to the protection of stateless Palestinian's children. However, we're wondering if we might include information on the infrastructures that exist to potentially protect these children from being disproportionately affected by these types of risks, and--

 

Katherine Harbord: Sorry, again, it’s a really interesting question. It’s something I know nothing about. Okay, no it’s good that you interrupt me before I go into detail.

 

Asylos: Then I will move on to the issue of access to the labour market. We found information on a ban to 39 high wage liberal professions. We found information according to which amendments were made to this Lebanese labour law in 2010. But then we found other reports implying that the ban is still in place. Any information you could give on this point would be very interesting.

 

Katherine Harbord: I spoke to a Palestinian in Lebanon towards the end of last year who told me that they do still require a work permit, it's like an authorisation, it's not something you have to physically pay for. But in practice, because of the problems of weak state structures, in practice often there is a charge attached or you can't receive it without paying a fee. No, fee is the wrong word. I was trying to think of a polite way to say bribe, but I mean bribe.

 

Asylos: Has your contact talked about what would happen if someone is caught working without a permit?

 

Katherine Harbord: This is something that has previously come up about a year, a year and a half ago. And my understanding is that the main consequences of not having a permit-- of course, there are potentially legal consequences, a fine. It's an offense. My understanding is that it carries kind of a statutory fine in the same way if you're caught speeding or something, you have whatever the fine is. So there are consequences. But the more important consequences, I think, are actually perhaps the unintended ones. So if somebody doesn't have a permit, they don't have the protections inscribed in labour law. They're open to exploitation, unscrupulous employers, those kind of ancillary problems rather than justifying itself. It's my understanding too that employers, if they have an illegal worker, they also are subject to a fine. So the gentleman I spoke to did say it was quite difficult to find sort of a good job without a work permit. Finding work is easy, but employers aren't generally willing to take the risk for higher-status jobs and roles. Understandably. The man that I was speaking to had involvement-- or had previously had involvement with the trade union movement, for example. So it may be that he was also more aware than the average person of the situation because of his interest in labour laws and labour relations.

 

Asylos: On the subject of access to land, housing and shelter for stateless Palestinians, we found many sources relating to the exclusion of Palestinians from the right to own real estate. Some sources point to the fact that people who were able to access real estate before the passing of this law would manage to register their house or their through relatives who are allowed to own land. Do you have any impression of how much this is practised and how it works?

 

Katherine Harbord: I have heard the same stories. I don't have any independent verification of this, but I have heard from people that they have registered property. It's their property, but it's registered in the name of their Lebanese business partner or an in laws because it either isn't possible to or it's perceived to be not possible, which can also be a barrier. Or there are concerns about perhaps the state confiscating a property even if it is possible to legitimately register it. So it's a bit hard to kind of untangle what is going on. But certainly, this is something I've heard repeatedly. But I'm not aware of whether there's any efforts to resolve this.

 

Asylos: This confiscation stories, do you know of anyone for whom it did happen?

 

Katherine Harbord: No. I don't know. When you hear one of these stories, it always happens to a friend of a friend of a friend or my cousin's husband. I wonder if perhaps it's kind of rumors you are more inclined to believe or to be more wary about things even if they aren't a statistical threat just because you have been living in a state of vulnerability. It seems likely that it could be a threat, so therefore you take evasive action. I mean, I'm not saying it never happens, but I've certainly not been able to track down and verify such a case. All it takes is one rogue police officer or local mayor or a dispute about whose goats ate whose apples or something to escalate. Words get heated, things escalate. And because you have kind of not only your own precarity but this collective memory of precarity, of course, you are fearing that your house/land might be confiscated.

Asylos: Moving on to access to justice, security and state protection, do you know whether stateless Palestinians go to the police in cases they were victims of abuse/crime?

 

Katherine Harbord: I have heard anecdotally that there's sort of, quote-unquote, "no point reporting complaints to the police because nothing will happen or they want--" there is a certain amount of corruption in the system, so justice isn't easy to secure. That things depend on kind of personal patronage networks that you may or may not have. But how valid a perception that is, I'm not able to judge. Anything involving a police complaint would go unreported. So “a policeman detained me illegally and beat me”, Probably, that would go unreported, because there would be a perception that there would be no point and it might bring further trouble. I have heard from a Palestinian somewhere down near Tyre in south Lebanon - that there was a reluctance to report problems from within the camps to the police. So if it's one Palestinian having a problem with another Palestinian or if something criminal has occurred, they prefer to kind of resolve it within the camp. Because of police perceptions, because of kind of inter-camp structures and things. But I heard that from one woman only.

 

Asylos: Do you have an idea what she referred to when she spoke of existing structures to resolve conflicts within camps? Katherine Harbord: So more kind of appeals to the older members of the community to kind of create resolution in cases of-- this particular case we were speaking about was a case of sexual violence. But she was acknowledging it was-- obviously, sexual violence is particularly complicated in this context because of kind of connotations of so called honour and things. It was, anyway, a more complex case. I don't know, necessarily, that a murder, for example, would be dealt with by the same way. But it was certainly this woman's impression that the community preferred as far as possible to police itself, rather than have recourse to the Lebanese police. They felt that it was also more likely to lead to more just resolutions.

 

Asylos: Our last point concerns political participation and protests. Are stateless Palestinians permitted to gather, to protest, or to hold a political office in Lebanon? Are there, for example, some public political figures who have--?

 

Katherine Harbord: So the one Palestinian I interviewed who claimed asylum in Europe based on the fact that he felt he was being targeted in Lebanon because of his political interests and political organisations and seeking to secure rights and representation for Palestinian people. He felt that he was arrested as a retaliation for kind of highlighting injustices faced by stateless Palestinians in Lebanon. He also claimed that he had been detained by police and that he had been subject to kind of harassment by local officials. The Home Office disputed his evidence and the judge did not find his account credible. And I think part of that was that we struggled to "prove" that this had happened..

 

Asylos: Is there anything you would like to add or share that was not being covered? Please feel free to do so.

 

Katherine Harbord: No. I do think it's important to stress the wider situation that Lebanon has experienced. Not only with the civil war and the kind of the dysfunction of governments for a number of years now. All of these things have made it much harder to kind of disaggregate the issue of stateless Palestinians here and made the question of finding evidence much harder because there are bigger problems. So the situations of Palestinians is flying a bit under the radar in the last couple of years. I think the fact that we do see discriminations against stateless Palestinians in Lebanon in the '90s early 2000s probably indicates there is some level still continuing of this. It's just that these statistics and things aren't being recorded now, whereas they were before. So the absence of recent evidence shouldn't be evidence of absence.

Interview with Mr. Ziad El Sayegh on October 31, 2022

 

Asylos: I will start with the first question which relates to the section on legal and policy frameworks in the implementation. We found information by UNICEF, which related to the very, I quote, "complicated and costly birth registration procedures," that children of stateless Palestinians have to go through. Could you tell us more about these birth registration procedures?

 

Ziad El Sayegh: There is no complication across the procedure at all. We have a department of Palestinian refugees within the Ministry of Interior and Municipalities in Lebanon, and you have also another registration at UNRWA. There is a I guess collaboration between UNRWA and this department within the Ministry of Interior and Municipalities. And it should go smoothly like this. It's very simple. Once they register through the UNRWA, they should go also to have a kind of an official paper from a responsible within the region they are living. After, it can be approved by the Embassy of Palestine of Lebanon and registered directly to the department of Palestinian refugees within the Ministry of Interior and Municipalities in Lebanon. If there is some costs for some members, for example, or a paper coming from the responsible, which is Al Mokhtar in Lebanon, who is responsible in a region. It is nothing, and the Lebanese people are paying for this when someone is born. They are paying the same. This is why I think this kind of information are irrelevant. Why? Because if a Lebanese citizen is obliged to pay for this responsible in the region - and it's an official rate - to give him an official paper and after, go to the Ministry of Interior and Municipality to submit a request. Also, you have a small cost that a Lebanese citizen should pay for it. It's nothing. They are the same. And here, if we are talking about equalities, we cannot ask the Lebanese citizens to pay for this and the Palestinian refugees will not pay. And for me, the solution is very simple. The UNRWA should have a special budget to cover this cost if any Palestinian refugees cannot pay for it. They should cover this cost. And here I'm going to the solution directly. Instead of saying there is a cost, let's try together to finalize a solution between the UNRWA and the department of Palestinian refugees within the Ministry of Interior and Municipalities in Lebanon. And we can solve this problem if the problem is the cost. For me, there is another problem. I'm not sure that all the Palestinian refugees are registering their newborns when they come. And this is another problem. And here we should investigate, and I advise you to add this to your work here, to your questionnaire to see why some Palestinian refugees are not registering their newborn. Why? Or where if they are not registering it within the Lebanese state and the Palestinian embassy only at UNRWA only. There is a lack here of collaboration between the Lebanese Ministry of Interior and Municipality and UNRWA and the Embassy of Palestine. This is the main problem, not the cost is the problem. The problem is there is a lack of a coordination mechanism to make sure that all the newborn are registered officially in Lebanon to make sure that they are not stateless in the future.

 

Asylos: We have a section on freedom of movements. The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the Lebanese General Security can deliver travel documents to Palestinian refugees in Lebanon who have an ID card and who have a UNRWA registration card. Based on your knowledge, does it mean that these travel documents are only available to Palestine refugees?

 

Ziad El Sayegh: Of course. They are only to Palestine refugees. Yes. But each specific case, stateless are taken into consideration within the Directorate of General Security in Lebanon. And here we should go back to a mechanism that we created in 2008 within the Lebanese Dialogue Committee that time to give these non-IDs or these stateless a kind of official paper (Identification Paper). It is not as a Palestinian refugee paper. It is a kind of an official paper saying that this man, this woman, these children are Palestinian refugees, but they have a problem in their papers. And this was supposed to be a transitional period where we should discuss with the UNRWA because the main stateless people were coming from Gaza and West Bank. Gaza that time was under Egypt governance, and West Bank was under Jordanian governance, and these people lost their official papers from Gaza and from West Bank and from Egypt and from Jordan. This is why in 2008-

- and it took us six months to finalize such a mechanism, and we succeed in making this happening, but unfortunately, after sometime the Minister of interior put an end for this. And I know why. It's for political reason. I know why, but it was not acceptable to put an end for this. And from that time this kind of official papers were paralyzed, but I know that the DGS, the Directorate of General Security are now taking into consideration these difficulties for these people, and they are following and trying to find a solution for each specific case based on a specific measure. And we should recognize this. This is not to say that the problem is solved. No. But there is a serious essay within the DSG, Directorate of General Security to try to find a transitional solution until-- and this is the role of the Lebanese Palestinian Dialogue Committee. I don't know if they are following this now. It seems for me this is not the case because if you don't put, on the table, a clear mechanism, we will continue having a specific solution for a specific case which is not sustainable for me, and it should not continue like this. And of course, this is paralyzing the freedom of movement for the travel only. But within the country, it is not paralyzing anything. They can move within the country. They can move within the country, and there is a constructive

collaboration between the Palestinian authorities, stakeholders in the country, and also the Lebanese government, and also the Lebanese military and security forces.

 

Asylos: Do you know the proportion of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon who do not have a registration with DPAR, nor with UNRWA, but whose father is registered with the DGS?

 

Ziad El Sayegh: No, I don’t know how many, but I knew that some of these people succeed in terms of an official request to the Directorate of the General Security in the country. They succeed to get a travel document, a travel doc, but I don't know how many there are. No, I don't know.

 

Asylos: Do you know whether after acquiring a third nationality (not Palestinian nor Lebanese) Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are still entitled to the travel documents issued by the Lebanese authorities?

 

Ziad El Sayegh: I don't think there is a close relation between these two equations. The problem is very simple. You have many Palestinian refugees that they receive a passport from the Palestinian Authority of the Palestinian State), and this kind of passport is recognized by the Lebanese Authority. And this is another solution that was led by the Palestinian Authority to make sure that they can help these stateless people. And there is another solution that I mentioned earlier that the DSG, Directorate of General Security of the country, tried also with the Palestinian Embassy in the country and the Ministry of Interior and Municipalities and UNRWA to make sure that these stateless are allowed to move within the country and from the country without paralyzing such a movement outside or inside the country because of they don't have any nationality. Have two kinds of solutions: Palestinian authority passport and Lebanese travel document. And they are complementary now, and each specific case are analyzed in a very specific methodology and based on facts. And since 2006, there is a new era between Palestinian and the Lebanese, and here I was not an observer. I was one of the member founder of Lebanese Palestinian Dialogue Committee. And we worked on this, and we paved the way for a new collaboration. That said, as much as we still have lack of laws to facilitate the Palestinian refugee's life in Lebanon, but we still have also other problems when we are talking about the arms inside and outside the camps. This is another story that can also a little bit put obstacles within this freedom of movement in the country. We should take--

 

Asylos: That is indeed very relevant to the next point we're interested in. How do checkpoints affect stateless Palestinians freedom of movement?

 

Ziad El Sayegh: They don't affect. If you go to all the camps, you can see in the north and in the south inside and equally, and the camps are mainly connected now to the Lebanese areas and the Lebanese villages and the Lebanese-- they are connected. They are working together. They are living together. They are sharing together. The checkpoints are still there to supervise the situation of the Palestinian arms inside and outside the camps. And this is another story. This is not to do with the Palestinian refugees themselves. Now it is due to the Hezbollah intervention and not allowing the Lebanese state to put an end for these arms. And this is a very simple story. This is a policy story. This is a political story, policy-oriented, very well policy-oriented by Hezbollah in the country. And don't undermine please this structure. The Lebanese Army is surrounding the Palestinian refugees camp, and this is where I am. I'm always discussing this with my Palestinian friend. Stop presenting yourselves always as victims. Please stop. And I'm telling also my Lebanese compatriot that it's time that the state put an end for the illegal arms inside and outside the camps. And it's time to go more to a civil approach in the country to restore the Lebanese Palestinian memory. Here there's a story of checkpoints is becoming a traditional story where you have a polarized approach from the Lebanese side, but also from Palestinian side, and it's time to put an end for this negative polarization from both sides.

 

Asylos: May I ask what you mean by a polarized story?

 

Ziad El Sayegh: The Lebanese are saying these camps are out of law, and we should control these camps. And some Palestinian Factions that are not aligned with PLO are saying we should keep our arms to protect ourselves because the Lebanese state is coming to kill us. And The PLO declared clearly that no need for arms inside and outside the campus, and the Lebanese sovereignty should be respected. Both narratives are not true if you see the Lebanese and Palestinian now living. They are living together. This kind of polarization is political. The Lebanese ruling regime is trying to play a dirty game on the Palestinian refugees portfolio in terms of, say, raise fears, radicalize people, polarize votes, and it's political game. The Palestinian Factions (not PLO) on other hand are playing the same game. This is my equation. Polarization is everywhere. And from the Palestinian side also, you have another narrative coming from the Palestinian factions, mainly now coming

from Hamas and some former PLO factions close to Syria regime saying we should keep our arms to protect ourselves, as if there is still a war between Lebanese and Palestinian, and this is not true. There is a close collaboration today between the Lebanese people and the Palestinian Refugees. And there is a close collaboration, if I may say, between the Lebanese army and the Palestinian political factions. They are in close collaboration. This is where this kind of checkpoints narrative should change on both sides.

 

Asylos: And would you say that it also includes checkpoints which are not run by Lebanese army, the checkpoints which are rather run by….

 

Ziad El Sayegh: By the Palestinian themselves within the camps.

 

Asylos: If I understood correctly, you're saying that checkpoints led by the authorities are not so much of an issue for the freedom of movement. But then we heard also of other types of checkpoints which are run by different militia.

 

Ziad El Sayegh: Absolutely. This is what I'm trying to say. And it's time to emphasize on this balance and to stop this victimization of the Palestinian refugees and also putting the Lebanese people, the Lebanese army as if they are, against, the Palestinian Refugees. And this is not true. This is not true on both sides.

 

Asylos: And which types of militia would run these checkpoints?

 

Ziad El Sayegh: Hezbollah. It's very simple. Even if it is informal sometimes. When I say Hezbollah militia, if I may say, it is not directly only Hezbollah. Sometimes you have Palestinian groups controlled by Hezbollah, who are Palestinian militia but close to Hezbollah. This is how Hezbollah is dealing. who are close to the Syrian regime, close to Hezbollah. This is how Hezbollah is treating the militias inside and around the camps.

It's very complicated. It's not as easy as you can imagine. And it's time to adjust this situation this is why I told you when we started: it's time to put an end for a traditional approaches. Let's go to understand the complexity of this creation.

 

Asylos: The next question, still related to freedom of movement, is now rather about the possibility to leave Lebanon on a temporary or permanent basis for stateless Palestinians. We found information on the difficulty for stateless Palestinians who have left Lebanon without an official document to reenter Lebanon if they want to.

 

Ziad El Sayegh: No, they can reenter Lebanon. There was a decision in 2007 to not allow them to be back in Lebanon, and in 2008, The Lebanese Government put it an end for this because we relied on a convention that Lebanon signed and approved, and it was an Arabic League, okay? If they go, they can go back, and if they have another nationality, they can keep for them also, the Palestinian refugees document. This was solved in 2008 based on that Lebanon should respect the United Nations resolutions and conventions and the Arabic resolution and conventions. If you tell me everybody is coming back without any difficulty, I cannot assure you. Maybe when they arrive to the airport, they will be subject to some difficulties, but legally speaking, it is solved. It is clear. Legally speaking, it is clear, but in Lebanon, as everywhere sometimes, not only Lebanon, you have the law, and you have some administrative measures based on some facts and information. Maybe they can modify such an implementation of the law, but the law is very clear.

 

Asylos: I would move to the next section on health. We found a report mentioning an increase of hepatitis A among the population of stateless Palestinians since 2020. Are you aware of such an increase?

 

Ziad El Sayegh: Yes, of course. Not only on the Palestinian Refugees side. It is on the Syrian Refugees, so the Syria refugee side, but also on the Lebanese community now. We are facing this problem--

 

Asylos: And are you aware of other communicable diseases which are now on the rise?

 

Ziad El Sayegh: No, no. It was COVID, hepatitis, and the UNICEF, the UNRWA, and other UN agencies, and the INGOs, and the NGOs, but also some faith-based organization are taking care of this within the camps and outside the camps. And there is a close collaboration between the Ministry of Public Health and the United Nations agencies and program and also the NGOs to make sure to try to contain these health problems. But it is affecting not only the Palestine refugees. It's affecting even the Lebanese community.

Asylos: Moving to the next section on child protection and access to education for children. We found information relating to the obstacles to the protection of stateless Palestinian children, for example, on risk of child marriage or child labor, but we found no information on the infrastructures in place to protect children from these types of harms.

 

Ziad El Sayegh: If you allow me to ask, are the Lebanese children protected from such a harm? This is my question. This is not connected to the law. This is connected to the informal labor sector of the country, the black market. And now, after mainly the economic social crisis in Lebanon, the Lebanese people, Lebanese children, are subject to such a harm. Let's be here very frank. These kind of questions-- I will be frank with you, and I am responsible for what I will say, I don't think that these questions are constructive now to analyze the Palestinian refugee children situation in the country without taking into consideration that the Lebanese children situation is coming more and more worse, and they are facing the same problems because of the economic and social crisis. It's time to create a paradigm shift or a new paradigm. Saying that these children are equal now, Palestinian Refugees or Syrian Refugees or Lebanese, and it's not due to any lack of law. It is due to three things. First of all, it is due to an ethical problem. Within the Palestinian refugees community itself, first. Second, an ethical problem within the Lebanese community in itself. And thirdly, it is not a lack of resources. It is a lack of government. And here we should ask the UNRWA what are their educational policy. They have schools all around the country. What are the educational policy? The educational policy is only about registering the children that are coming to be involved in the school, or the role as UNRWA is to go to the Palestinian children and to call them to come to the school. This is another story. Because of this I was the only one who wrote in 2007 in Lebanon the policy paper talking around the need for a paradigm shift within the UNRWA policy, not only in Lebanon, all around the world. And to move from a relief approach to a developmental approach. And yet the UNRWA is still continuing the relief approach. And Lebanon's a special case because we've had a war between Lebanese and Palestinian refugees. We've had a war. We have a bad collective memory. As much as we succeed in analyzing together the root causes of this conflict, but the UNRWA didn't change at all yet. To answer your question, it is not about the law. It is about the mindset, the ethics, and the behaviors, and you can add to this now. The economic and social crisis are working. They are working for nothing. For 20,000 or 30,000 lira which is one dollar per day. It's nothing. It's unacceptable. And this is our crisis too. We are facing the same crisis, and we are not children. We are 46, 45, 50, 65. We have the same problem now. And here I think I will request to change a little bit the narrative. You cannot continue on the same narrative. It's not about the law. It's not about the law. It's not about the access for education. It is about an ethical behavior governance crisis. It's not about the law. Now the Lebanese children are moving from the private sector to the public sector in the schools, and it seems in many areas, there is no more places for the Lebanese children in these public schools. The Lebanese don't have any more places. This is why we should ask the UNRWA to enlarge their investment in the educational sector to put an end for such a crisis. And they have the capacity because they have money coming from the international donors, and if they don't invest in education, they will have a big problem in the future, these children.

 

Asylos: Not all Palestinian refugees' children are registered with UNRWA however, so not all Palestinian refugee children can go to UNRWA school, right?

 

Ziad El Sayegh: This is another question. If you are Palestinian refugees, why are you not registered with an UNRWA if the UNRWA can provide you, first of all, a living health and education assistance. They can give you some subsidies in terms of home, and they can give you educational assistance and health assistance. Can you tell me why a Palestinian refugee or an official Palestinian refugee is not registered with an UNRWA? Why? He should be registered, and he can request officially the cover of UNRWA and the educational and the health sector. It's not smart at all if any Palestinian refugees in the country refuse to be registered with UNRWA because his will be losing many of his rights because UNRWA assist them-

-, for example, for the Palestinian refugees coming from Syria, they created a special framework to solve this problem for them. No, the UNRWA is flexible, and I'm sure, I'm confident, and I followed many cases of them that they treated them as if they are coming in 1948. And here, we should ask the UNRWA to enlarge their legal framework on this and to cover all the needs of these Palestinian refugees, whether they were coming in 1948 or in 1967 or in 1973 or after the war in Syria in 2011. They should cover that.

 

Asylos: I will move to the next session on the access to the labor market. We found many resources related to legal restrictions on Palestinians' rights to work, especially due to the ban on 39 high-wage liberal professionals outside the camps. But we also found information according to which there were amendments that were made to the Lebanese Labor Law and Social Security Law in 2010, which apparently waived work permit fees for Palestinian refugees born in Lebanon. Does it mean that Palestinians still need to obtain a work permit in order to work but do not have to pay for this work permit any longer?

Ziad El Sayegh: No, no, no, no, no. The law was very clear. They will receive a work permit without paying anything. The only problem was in the National Social Security Fund, and we were about solving this. I was that time the team leader of the Minister of Labor. They don't have to pay anything. The only problem was that the law obliged them to pay for the end- of-service indemnity, and this was in their interest but obliging them to pay for medical fund without benefiting it was an issue. End of service indemnity program within the National Social Security Fund to protect the rights when they finished their work, this was key. The only problem was that there was a debate between the Lebanese government at that time and the Lebanese Parliament also if they are obliged to pay for the medication program of the National Social Security Fund. And after this, there was a discussion between 2011 and 2012 to make sure to put an end for this contribution because they are not benefiting from this contribution and the medication program because UNRWA is taking care of this. Yet this kind of modification was not adopted because of the lack of governance in the country and the Lebanese- Palestinian dialogue committee.

 

Asylos: And this was in 2010?

 

Ziad El Sayegh: Yes, 2010. But between 2016 and 2018, when there was a Lebanese-Palestinian dialogue-- and we succeeded in 2018 to issue a unified vision towards the Palestinian refugees issue in Lebanon, and I'm sure you saw it. It was issued by LPDC, and I was one of the facilitator of these dialogues. It was coordinated with the UNDP. It was led by the Lebanese Palestinian Dialogue Committee, and I was one of the facilitators at that time. We succeeded within the Lebanese political stakeholders to approve a consensus that these Palestinian refugees should not pay for the medication program because they are not benefiting from it. But to tell you the truth, the work permit was to protect these Palestinian refugees workers from the black market, and this was not well received from the Palestinian refugees because they wanted to stay within the black market. And you have two contradictory narrative coming from the Palestinian refugees: one narrative saying, "We are subject in black market--" and they are attacking this black market. And when you ask them to come and to issue a work permit, they are saying, "No. Why we need a work permit when we are residing in the country since 1948, and we are as Lebanese?". "No, you are not as Lebanese. Sorry. You are a Palestinian refugee, and we are trying to protect you from the black market. What we are asking you is very simple: please come and take this paper and be official. And you will not pay anything for this paper. And you will have a benefit from the end-of-service indemnity. And here, who you are working with should pay for this end-of-service indemnity an amount approved legally." There is a contradictory approach. This is another narrative of victimization, "We are always victim. We're always victim". "You are not victims. We have Lebanese law. As Lebanese, myself, I am working. I am supposed to submit every year to the Ministry of Finance what I'm doing, what I'm receiving as salary, and I should pay a tax. But you are as Palestinians, you don't want to do this. You don't want to do anything. You are a Palestinian refugee resident in this country. There is a law in this country. You should respect the law. Allah. We need to make consensus on this law. I agree. We should maybe modify many things to facilitate your work. I agree. But don't tell me, 'I will not accept any work permit.' Why you are not accepting?" Philosophy speaking as myself a Lebanese citizen, as if I don't want to submit any official paper for the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Finance that I'm working in Lebanon, this is crazy. It's time to change this mindset. We are all under the rule of law. If we want to facilitate within the law some measures, we will negotiate this together in a constructive approach. But it's not allowed to anyone in this country, even a Lebanese citizens like me to say, "I will not. I don't want. I'm out of law. I will do anything out of law." "No, no. You should not. Sorry, sorry." What is missing in this country is the rule of law, and it's time to make sure to bring back to this country a state of law taking into consideration the human dignity and the specific status of these refugees and trying to facilitate for them all kinds of measures that can allow them to work in the majority of the fields. If you have other fields, they need a specific law adopted by the parliament like being a lawyer or an engineer, or. These are free orders, and they have a bylaws approved by the parliament. We need another kind of modification here. Here's another story. This is very complicated. But if I may say, the Palestinian engineers and medicines, they are working. They are working on the black market. And this is bad, and they are accepting work in the black market. They are accepting this. The problem is not only within the Lebanese side, the problem is also within the Palestinian side. And this is why we are saying all the time, it's time to restore the Lebanese-Palestinian collective memory and authors, otherwise the contradictory narrative will continue and will destroy the peaceful new era between Palestinian and Lebanese.

 

Asylos: Assuming that someone would be willing to apply for this work permit, what are the different steps to acquire the work permit?

 

Ziad El Sayegh: He should go to the Ministry of Labor and submit, and after 1 week or 10 days, you will receive the work permit.

 

Asylos: which identity papers do they have to show?

Ziad El Sayegh: Of course, there’s official paper. There’s official document saying who he is. He is working with whom, for whom, in which field, and he should have an official paper from his employer. It’s simple. Maybe it’s because of the shortage of people within the Ministry of Labor. It will need some more time due to COVID and to the economic crisis in the country, but all of us are facing such problem with the public administration. Anyway, the Lebanese public administration is destroyed since 20, 30 years by the corruption.

 

Asylos: Our next question concerns Palestinians’ access to land, housing, and shelter…

 

Ziad El Sayegh: This is a very complicated story. In 2002, we didn't allowed anymore for the Palestinian refugees to buy a house, but also, we discovered that before 2002, many Palestinian refugees were buying lands houses without registering it to avoid paying the taxes. And this is another story. And between 2016 and 2018, this was one of the key framework we discussed within Lebanese national dialogue towards the Palestinian refugees issue, and we suggested a solution to legalize all the lands and houses bought before 2002 and after to think scenarios of long-term leasing that they can allow the Palestinian refugees to have houses. This is a very complicated story, but it can be solved surely if we have a goodwill not only from the Lebanese side but also from the Palestinian side themselves.

 

Asylos: On access to justice, security, and state protection, do you know whether stateless Palestinians report complaints to the police? Does it happen that some of the complaints are also followed by police investigations, or do they tend not to go to the police?

 

Ziad El Sayegh: Really, I don't have the information, but I'm sure I followed some case, but I don't have specific information. Where they are subject were follow up by the security force, but they have the capacity directly to have a lawyer. The INGOs mainly and NGOs in Lebanon are taking care of them if they have any problem with the justice platform in the country. While I also should acknowledge that the justice in Lebanon is killed by the politicians and the Lebanese citizens are themselves subject to an organized crime which is not allowing any types of justice to be implemented. And for me here also, it's time to adjust the narrative. It's not only about the Palestinian refugees and justice. It is about all the Lebanese citizens and all the residents and the country justice.

 

Asylos: Our last point concerns political participation and protests. Are stateless Palestinians permitted to gather, to protest, or to hold a political office in Lebanon? Are there, for example, some public political figures who have--?

 

Ziad El Sayegh: We have camps in the country, and you are asking me if they are allowed to do a political work. In the law, they cannot vote, only, within the Lebanese election, but they are everywhere, and they are doing political work. You can see a responsible from each faction visiting a Lebanese political figure and doing gathering and doing manifestation within the camps, of course. And after, if we receive, for example, Khaled Mashal, or Ismail Haniyeh, in the country, the Hamas leaders, you can see their manifestations. And this is what? This is a political work. Please, it's time that these people will stop saying “We are not allowed for a political work” and you know they are my friends. I'm not an active. They know me very well, and I know them very well. And what I'm telling you, I told them this many times, and I'm still telling them the same thing. It's time to stop being victims. You are here everywhere, and you are doing political work, of course. They have political offices. Please, can you ask Al-Jabha Al-Shabiya General Commander or Hamas or Fatah They have political offices within the camps and outside the camps. They have militias within the camps too. And you have many NGOs where you can see Lebanese and Palestinians themselves creating this NGO, and they are working together, of course. If you are asking me the law is allowing them to do political gathering, I'm telling you no. But this is not the situation on the ground. They are doing everything. It's not about the law. It is about a de facto. When we received Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader, six months ago, there were political / Military manifestation in the camps. And he was received by the president of republic, the prime minister, the speaker in Lebanon. He was received by the president of republic in Lebanon. This is what? This is an NGO visit? This is a political visit.

 

Asylos: Is there anything thing you would like to add that--?

 

Ziad El Sayegh: No. I want to thank you for your trust, and I want to encourage you to move forward, and to try to modify, a little bit, the traditional framework. This is my advice.

Interview with Mrs Walaa Kayyal on October 31, 2022

 

Transcription details:

 

Date: 31-Oct-2022

Input sound file: 20221031 Walaa Kayyal.m4a

 

Transcription results:

 

Asylos: We identified gaps in the public domain relating to legal and policy frameworks and their implementation. One section we would like your input on concerns the rights to a nationality that children of stateless Palestinian parents have. Specifically, one source, UNICEF Lebanon, indicated that the birth registration procedures are "Complicated and costly." Could you give us a more detailed description of the different steps required and the costs that are implied and do you agree with UNICEF’s statement?

 

Walaa Kayyal: Yes, definitely. Registering the birth in the Lebanese system is very complicated and often people-- not all people, they know all the steps if you want to legalize the birth of their children, even if they are Lebanese. So you got to see many Lebanese parents. Both the wife and husband are Lebanese, but their children are stateless because they have missed one of the steps in birth registration. The procedure is very complicated and it doesn't make sense at all. However, this is how the Lebanese system works for birth registration. When a child is born, the doctor at the hospital where the child is born should be giving a birth notification to the parents, where this birth notification should be carried and stamped by the mayor, or we call it an Arabic, the Mukhtar of the area. And he would copy the information in the birth notification from the hospital that has the name of the child, the parents' name, the date, and the time when this child is born into another template, which is the birth certificate. When the mayor fills in this information the parents have to go to the Nofous [Arabic for civil status directory]. We call it [foreign], or the civil status directory where they should go and they should approve that this child has been born on this date, on this time. And definitely before they get to approve the birth registration, the mayor should sign and stamp in order to legalize this. So, as you can see, there are 3 steps in the Lebanese system to notify that a child has been born. First, a birth notification from the hospital. Second, the birth certificate from the mayor, initiated by the mayor, signed and stamped and then signed and stamped from the Nofous. And why? This is because, in the Nofous, they give the birth certificate or the child the record. And the record is inherited through the Lebanese family. So you see, the father has the record on their ID 465. It is in his all children records, male and females. And then the males will give it to all their children, the female when she gets married. Her record changes to her husband. So this is in more detail why this system is a bit complicated to the birth certificate. Now we have something, which is one of the major causes of statelessness in Lebanon, is the one-year duration, which is something that not all Lebanese know about. And what do I mean by this duration? So if I got a birth notification, and then I went to the mayor and got the birth certificate, but I didn't do the third step, which is going to the Nufus and, again, signing and stamping, acknowledging that this child is born. If they didn't do this step within the first year, after birth, this child is considered as stateless. They cannot inherit the record number of his or her father and they become stateless. In order to retain the nationality again, this cannot, at this stage, go through the administrative procedures. They should go through the courts where they raise an appeal, say that we missed this one year, and they have to appoint an attorney for sure, and then, again, retain the nationality of the child. So between the birth notification and the birth certificate, it's not very clear, but it's well-known that within 30 days you should be doing this. And then you have the one-year duration, which is very critical to make sure that your child is born with a nationality. It's a one year. If you miss it, the child becomes stateless, and you have to retain nationality again through court. From where I know this information. So about the process, this is well known in Lebanon that we have to do this step only for Lebanese, also for Palestinians and whoever is born here. But more specifically for Lebanese and Palestinians. Because the Palestinians here in Lebanon, they have a separate Nofous or a separate civil status office for them. So also they have to get a birth notification, birth certificate, and then go to the Nofous, which is the Palestinian office where civil documents are issued. Or they call it Shououn [نؤوش] in Arabic for Palestinians specifically in order to approve the birth. Well, this is well known first. And second, I know these details because I was part of the research done by University of Melbourne about statelessness in Lebanon. So this is why I have that much of details.

 

Asylos: Thank you very much. So have I understood correctly that the specific administrative office for Palestinians to register births exist at every communal level, or is there only one office in all Lebanon where they are allowed to get the approval of their birth certificate?

Walaa Kayyal: Unfortunately, we have only one office in Lebanon which is located in Beirut. And all Palestinians living in any place in Lebanon, if they want to issue a new ID, if they want to issue a new birth certificate or a divorce certificate or a marriage certificate or a death certificate, they have to come to this one office that is located in Beirut.

 

Asylos: Thank you for clarifying. The fact that Palestinians specifically have a different type of mayor to whom they need to go to get the approval of the child certificate, is that the only way in which they are specifically affected by this complicated birth registration procedure? Or do you think of other aspects of the child registration procedure which affects Palestinians specifically?

 

Walaa Kayyal: So when I think about Palestinians, I think of two types of Palestinians: the 1948 Palestinians, who were forcibly kicked off Palestine in 1948, and they came and they sought refuge in Lebanon. These are the individuals who are registered by UNRWA. So they have an UNRWA registration. They have an UNRWA registration card and UNRWA registration number. And through this, they can access all UNRWA services. And also through it, they can-- if you want the Lebanese authorities, they testify that these are refugees and that they have sought refuge in Lebanon during 1948. And you have the Palestinians and those Palestinians who migrated to Lebanon in 1967 as a result of the second revolution that happened in Palestine. The second batch of Palestinians and those who migrated in 1967, the Lebanese government does not consider them as refugees. They consider them maybe as illegally passing-by population. They just pass the borders illegally, and they end up at Lebanon. And these are not registered by UNRWA. And the Lebanese government does not consider them as refugees. And they do not have any papers at all. So they cannot approve their marriage. If they have children, the government does not consider them as they exist from the early beginning. So if they are born, if they die, if they get married, if they have children, the government does not consider them to exist on the Lebanese territory. And hence, they cannot do any legal paper. So they don't exist. So for the 1967 [Palestinians], these are stateless. These are considered stateless because they don't have any kind of identification document from the Lebanese government. For the Palestinians of 1948, the main statelessness reason can be traced to, again, the Lebanese complicated birth registration processes. It can also be because the parents don't want to register their child simply. So if they don't want to register their child-- and we have several cases in Lebanon where parents are just very ignorant to an extent that they do not want to register their child on purpose, or they choose not to register them. And then when they grow up and want to go to school, the schools cannot register them. And then the parents wake up that they needed to register their children and get them legal papers in order to facilitate their education, movement, access to healthcare, etc.

 

Asylos: Do you know some reasons why these people would not want to register their newborns or are reluctant to do so in the case of the 1948 Palestine Refugees?

 

Walaa Kayyal: It can be traced to several things. Again, I'm trying to remember some of the interviews that I used to conduct with Palestinians in several projects. So this can be because they simply don't want to register them or because the parents are already stateless, so they cannot pass on their nationality. So anyway, if they want to register them or don't want to register them, it doesn't matter. Second, it can be because-- the Palestinians here in Lebanon, specifically Palestinians who are in Lebanon, they suffer a lot. So we cannot join the workforce in the formal sector. We often work in the informal sector. And if we want to work, definitely we cannot apply for public positions, those that are governmental positions. We can work in informal sector or in the NGO sectors. For example - I speak of myself - I work in an international NGO where they apply for me for a work permit, and they renew it every year. But I cannot work in the public sector. So we cannot work in-- also, even doctors, they cannot register in the syndicate of doctors or engineers, etc. They are deprived of many professions. Even if they go to medical school and they are doctors and they're one of the best doctors, they cannot legally be doctors unless they are doctors in UNRWA clinics.

 

Asylos: Yes we have a whole section on this ban. We will definitely go back to these aspects. I think it's a bit further down in the list of questions, specifically on the labor market, would you want us to go chronologically through the other questions?

 

Walaa Kayyal: Yes, no worries. So one thing to add is that the word is Nofous. And if you want the English translation for it, it's the registration offices where Lebanese people; they have one at each area and they cannot register their births or divorce or marriage in the other registration office. For those who are in the south, they go to the specific one in the south. Those who are in the north; they go to the specific one in the north. But for Palestinians, it is only one. And they don't call it Nofous, they call it Shououn [نؤوش]. So it's like the Palestinian Affairs Office.

Asylos: We found a document by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs that stated that the Lebanese General Security can deliver travel documents to Palestinian refugees in Lebanon if they have an ID card and UNRWA registration card. Does it mean that these travel documents are only available to Palestine refugees? Can you share your knowledge on travel documentation with us?

 

Walaa Kayyal: Yes. So Palestinians in Lebanon; they don't have a passport. If you want, the only legal document that is not issued by the Palestinian Registration Affairs Office is the travel document. They issue everything that has to do with legal papers. The ones I listed before, except for the passport. The passport is issued by the GSO, the General Security Office and there are definitely requirements to apply for the travel document because we don't have a passport. Again, it's a travel document. You should apply with your ID, which is a blue ID as they call it, and the UNRWA card. So why UNRWA card? Because historically, when the Palestinians came to Lebanon in 1948, they were registered directly by UNRWA and based on UNRWA registration, the Lebanese government again considered them as refugees and made this office for them to get all their paper and to be legally present in the country. However, one important thing to mention here is even the GSO office for the Lebanese is different from the Palestinians. The Palestinians, they have a separate office even for issuing the travel documents. We do not interact with the Lebanese. So for example, my mother is Lebanese, so she goes and applies for her passport in a different building, and me as a Palestinian, I go and I apply in a different building. They're very close to each other but they are separate. And definitely, the papers required are different for the Lebanese and the Palestinians. Also, the duration of when you have to renew your passport is different. For example, a Lebanese person can renew his or her passport for 10 years. For Palestinian it's up to 5 years. It's either 1 year, 3 years, or 5 years. For Lebanese, it's 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, or 10 years. Also we did not use to have biometric passport. I think since three, four years ago we started to have biometric passports, the Palestinian travel documents are also biometric. The Palestinian travel document has the migrant sign on it, two oblique lines. We have this on our travel document just to identify us as migrants and not citizens. Before the passport was biometric, the Lebanese used to have a navy blue color for their passport and it's smaller in size, while the Palestinians used to have a larger size of the passport and it was brown. After they became biometric, it became the same size but the Lebanese passport is navy blue and the Palestinian passport is blue, but a lighter blue color. This is something one has to know about Lebanon: They have to discriminate in any way. You can see these discriminatory actions without words, they have to differentiate Lebanese from Palestinians in any way possible.

 

Asylos: Do you happen to know the proportion of people without registration, neither with DPAR nor with UNRWA, who managed to obtain travel documents?

 

Walaa Kayyal: Up to my knowledge, no one can issue a travel passport if they don't have an ID and a registration with a UNRWA registration card because this is a requirement. If you do not submit all your complete papers, they simply reject your order. Because they review the papers in front of you and say ‘if you don't complete your file, we are not going at the first place to apply for you to issue a travel document’. So up to my knowledge, you cannot issue it unless all the papers are submitted.

 

Asylos: After acquiring a certain nationality which is not Palestinian or Lebanese, Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are still entitled to the travel documents that you just talked about, or does it prevent from applying for travel documents?

 

Walaa Kayyal: Before I answer your question, I would like to mention a very deeply rooted phenomenon. The Lebanese state is afraid to disrupt the sectorial balance in the country. Therefore they do not count how many Lebanese inhabitant there are. Because if they count how many Lebanese are in the country, they have to count how many are Sunni, how many are Shiaa’, how many are Christian Maronites, how many are Christian Orthodox Etc. And they don't want this because they don't want to say that, for example the Sunnah is the largest group? This is why the last census that Lebanon made was in 1932, and this goes back to the French Mandate. When people was under the French Mandate, the French conducted a census for the Lebanese in order to know how many Lebanese they were, and this was before it was a free country. So you don't have census. And this is done on purpose, as I explained. And this also applies to the Palestinians, so Lebanon does not count how many Palestinians live in Lebanon. Therefore you can find several numbers of how many Palestinians are in Lebanon. The most used number for the number of Palestinians in in Lebanon is 300 000-something. Why is this number exaggerated? Because Palestinians tend to leave the country? For example, I can leave now to UK, and I seek asylum, and I become a UK citizen. But my registration in Lebanon is still ongoing and I continue to be counted as a Palestinian in Lebanon. So, again let’s say I give birth to four children. I will come to Lebanon, register them, although they are UK citizens? I register them in UNRWA and they get refugee cards. Most Palestinians tend to do this in order to keep their records in Lebanon? Also in the hope to retain their right to territorial Palestine. Because the Lebanese state does not follow up on this, they don't know maybe if I got a UK citizen or US citizenship, etc. And thus, I can still be entitled to the

refugee status in Lebanon, and I can even come and show a refugee paper for my children without them knowing that I actually have another citizenship. Therefore, the number of Palestinians on record is exaggerated. In reality there are less, since the majority of Palestinians have traveled.

 

Asylos: If someone obtained another nationality they could just not show their identity paper from this newly-acquired citizenship and just enter the country with their refugee papers?

 

Walaa Kayyal: Let me clarify this. Let’s say I become an American citizen? I can enter Lebanon with my American passport and live here with my American passport, no worries. The Lebanese state does not trace anything? But then let’s say that my Palestinian passport expires because I've been in the US for ten consecutive years. So I come to Lebanon to visit my family and I say "Oh, let me just renew my passport." I can go normally and renew my passport. They cannot trace if I have other nationalities, they cannot trace if I am in the country or not. They cannot trace anything. This does not happen if someone went and reported that they have a US citizenship. So now the government has the right to withdraw your refugee status because you are no longer a refugee. You're a citizen of another country now. In the case the Lebanese state withdrew all your refugee documens, when you want to visit Lebanon, you visit as a foreigner. You have to pay for residency permit or maybe, according to the nationality you acquired, you have up to three to six months in the country without a residency. Then you are treated as an American, a UK, I don't know, a Swiss person. But that never happens, I can guarantee you like no one goes and reports their other nationalities to the Lebanese authorities.

 

Asylos: In the case of people who exit the country without a travel document, what are the chances for them to be able to return?

 

Walaa Kayyal: How will they exit the country without a travel document in the first place? So, look, even on the borderlines we have checkpoints. Let me give you an example. So if I am a person with no papers and I want to go to Syria, which is very close to Lebanon. I went to Syria. There is a whole GSO office there to stamp my passport that I have left Lebanon on this date. And then I went next to it for the Syria, for the government of Syria where they stamped that I entered Syria on this date, and on my way back, the Syrian stamp on my passport that I have left Syria on this date. And again I stamped in the Lebanon GSO that I have entered to Lebanon on this date. So there is no way to cross borders if we're talking by car or walking, whatever. So not by an airplane. There is no way to cross borders unless you are smuggled or illegally passed. And the chances for you to come back to the country will be very minimal because maybe the first time you were lucky to cross borders without anyone, I don't know, observing you-- or noticing you crossing, but it is more risky if you want to come back to Lebanon because they will ask you for any identification document, for your passport, etc. And one more thing that I wanted to add is that it becomes harder when you cross borders illegally and then you are put-- for anything in the country that you travel to, where they're going to ask, "Where is your ID?" or, "Where is your password?" And you say, "I don't have--" so they may arrest you. You might stay in their prison forever without anyone knowing anything about you because there's no identification. There's no document that would identify that this is your name, this is your birth date, you're married, you're not married, this is your father, this is your mother, etc.

 

Asylos: I think the only information we found so far on the possibility to reenter after having left the country without residence permit related to Palestine refugees from Syria who apparently could enter the country because the transit was not formalized. And then we found another source mentioning that, since the Lebanese elections in May 2018, it became much more difficult to cross borders.

 

Walaa Kayyal: It has also become much harder, not only for Palestinians who came from Syria but for Syrians themselves. This dual movement became very hard because, at the moment, the Lebanese government wants to send Syrians back to Syria because they don't consider them as refugees. So the Lebanese government, they consider the Palestinians of 1948 as refugees, and they have established 12 legal camps in addition to Palestinian gatherings. However, the Lebanese government, they do not consent that Syrians are refugees but rather call them “displaced”, this is why they don't have legal camps. They just settle in random camps and settlements. This is what we call it. It's not camp. So they don't even have the right to seek asylum or refuge in Lebanon.

 

Asylos: We found information in public domain referring to arbitrary arrests at checkpoints which, according to this source, particularly affected Syrian refugees, Palestinian refugees from Syria, and non-IDs living in camps in the south of the country. We wonder whether you would corroborate this information and if you have more information on what happens when people are arrested at checkpoints, when and how they are arrested, who might be particularly targeted.

Walaa Kayyal: Usually, the people who are arrested at checkpoints, are those who don't have IDs. They are arrested and they are placed in a police office until someone comes and testify that this person's name is that, they know his mother, his father, this is the name of his mother, this is the name of his father, and this is his birth date. For the stateless individuals, it is very hard because they don't even have an identification document. They have what they call an identification card and this card is literally written by hand by the mayor of the village where the stateless person is residing. Usually, also Syrians, Palestinians from Syria, and Palestinians from Lebanon, they are stopped at checkpoints, and the army, first, they ask for ID. If you are a Syrian ID, a Palestinian from Syria or a Palestinian from Lebanon, it will show right away since the ID of Palestinians in Lebanon is very well known and visible since it is big and has a different blue color. As I also explained to you, in Lebanon, there is a lot of discrimination, so if you show the Lebanese card, they let you pass, and if you show the Palestinian identification document, they stop you. They ask you questions such as “where do you live?” If you tell them you live in Beirut: “why are you going to the north? “ “Do you have relatives there?” “ What are you going to do?” “Are you going to have fun?” “Who are you going to visit?” “So they open such mini investigation, and if they want to arrest you, they can arrest you. There's no barrier. So they can arrest you. They can just put you under arrest, move you to a police station, have you do some investigation, let you spend some time in the room, in the police office just doing nothing, and then at night, they tell you, we have crossed your information through our systems and there is nothing, so now you can leave to your house, simply. So the army, they have a system where they check your name. They just, for example, type your name and they see all your basic information and they see if you have any criminal record, and based on what comes out, they deal with you. If they see something in your record they will interpret it as related to your current travel and say "Oh, so you're going there to steal”, they can decide to keep you longer or even to transfer you to a closer police station. And all of this, if I may say, depend on the mood of the army staff or those who are at checkpoint. If they are in a good mood, and they love Palestinians (because in a lot of Lebanese families they are Palestinians), if their mother is Palestinian or- I don't know - their brother-in-law is, if they have this Lebanese-Palestinian relationship, this might be a very good excuse to let you go at checkpoints. So this process is very much subjective.

 

Asylos: How common are these checkpoints nowadays? We found information stating that the number of Lebanese army checkpoints decreased over the past few years.

 

Walaa Kayyal: I wouldn't actually agree because unfortunately, in Lebanon the army is centralized in all Lebanon. So you do not have a separation between the army and the civilians. You can find checkpoints anywhere and you also have mobile checkpoints. So for example, they would call army officers and say, "Go open a checkpoint in this area" and this can be for different reasons. Their number did not decrease. They close one and open another one. They usually do this very, very abruptly. So it's not based on a decision or based on a systematic matter. Let me give you an example. Many people here in Lebanon, they don't register their motorcycle, or they might not have a driving license because it costs money, and they are already poor. So let’s say someone saved to get a motorcycle as a transportation mean because now transportation prices are skyrocketing. But this person does not register their motorcycle to have a license plate. Now on a Sunday the military decides to put a checkpoint in the middle of Beirut and start stopping all the motorcycles that are driving by, collecting the motorcycles that are not properly registered, and the government cashes the money.

 

Asylos: Can you indicate where the checkpoints are usually located?

 

Walaa Kayyal: I am not aware of all of them, but I can tell you that you have a checkpoint before you enter Sidon [a city in Lebanon], you have a checkpoint before you enter Tyre [a city in Lebanon], before you enter Tripoli then you have a checkpoint before you enter South of Lebanon, so you have a checkpoint actually before you enter any district where they just stop you, you show them your ID, and they say go or they ask you some questions before. Also gradually through the years, the Palestinian camps which did not have any army checkpoints, they started to add checkpoints. So now if you want to enter any camp (we have 12 Palestinian camps in Lebanon), there is an army checkpoint before you enter. They usually ask you why you're entering. If they find you strange, they check you, they check your car, they check your documents and ask why you are entering, if you're distributing anything, if you are carrying anything with you. Usually when we go to camps with my work, we have a permission from the Lebanese government to distribute food parcels or to distribute laptops, tablets, etc.

 

Asylos: Would you want to add anything about checkpoints that are run by militia, apart from the checkpoints run by the army?

Walaa Kayyal: I wouldn't call them checkpoints, I would call them offices. Because every party in Lebanon has some offices, they can be hidden offices. For example it can be a shop, a very small shop, but it's an office for party X. So it's not really a checkpoint. Checkpoints are only for army, as far as I know. When you enter any village and you are a stranger, there are offices for the specific party who is ruling over this area. They will approach you and ask why you are entering "Do you have anyone inside? Show us your ID." And if they don't like you or suspect that you are, I don't know, coming to do something that is against their interest, they will tell you to leave.

 

Asylos: I would now move on to the section of their reports which relates to health. We covered the COVID-19 in length in the report but we also found mentions of an increase in cases of viral hepatitis A within the population of stateless Palestinians since 2020. Are you aware of such an increase and/or of other communicable diseases?

 

Walaa Kayyal: Definitely. So I would not say it is specific to Palestinians or to Syrians or to Lebanese. Hepatitis A is a communicable disease spread through water. The more polluted the environment you reside in, higher the risk you will get hepatitis A. For Lebanese, they live in bigger houses with better infrastructures but are still getting hepatitis A because their water comes from the same source. Let me give you an example, last month we went to my mother, who is Lebanese and lives in a village, my brother got hepatitis A from there. My uncle, who is rich and lives in a mini villa, he also got hepatitis A, because the water is polluted. But from a public health perspective, when you are more vulnerable, it means you are living in a harsher situation, in a harsher environment where access to services is minimal. When the services are available, they are of a bad quality. So person who is living in a luxurious place getting hepatitis A and a person who is living in a camp or an informal settlement can both get hepatitis A but the risk of the second and the third are higher than for the first.

 

Asylos: In case you have any figures on this, maybe through your work or any other sources you might think of, that would be very helpful. Are there any other communicable diseases you know of that have been particularly affecting Palestinians in Lebanon other than COVID-19 and hepatitis A?

 

Walaa Kayyal: We have cholera now in Lebanon. However the Lebanese government is not openly saying how many cases there are and where they are concentrated. As usual, they are blaming the Syrians for transmitting cholera to the country. They say that all the cholera cases are concentrated among Syrians. So you will never know unless you contract it. When COVID-19 hit the country, the Lebanese government also said that it was among Syrians, that they brought it to the country, etc. Then the number of COVID-19 infections started rising and rising and they started to collect data on the nationality, place of residence and age of those infected. So now we have cholera, but I cannot tell you how bad the epidemic is. Until now I heard of 300-something cholera cases and maybe up to 13 deaths from cholera. But I cannot tell you where this is actually concentrated because the Lebanese government does not communicate.

 

Asylos: We have a section on mental health and psychosocial-related disorders amongst Palestinians. Likewise, if you have any more precise figures to send us, that would be very helpful.

 

Walaa Kayyal: There are several studies done by Dr. Rima Afifi, she's an American-Palestinian and professor at the American University of Beirut when I was a student. She now in a US American university. There are many studies she co-authored, specifically about mental health inside Palestinian camps. In general, on this subject you might not find many journal articles but a lot of grey literature. This grey literature might build on figures from local organizations or international non-governmental organizations working on mental health among Palestine refugees. According to the samples they have identified you might get different numbers and different figures, also according to the camps where they selected the beneficiaries etc.

 

Asylos: I would move on to the section on child protection and access to education for children. We wondered if child protection or social services are available to stateless Palestinians and if it is the case, to your knowledge, who would they be provided by?

 

Walaa Kayyal: UNRWA has been working very recently on mental health, so usually the UNRWA clinics, when they started they were focusing on chronic diseases, communicable diseases, providing awareness, providing dental services, et cetera. Because mental health was and still is a taboo in Lebanon, you cannot say "I'm seeing a psychologist to help me do one, two, three." People would answer "Oh what, are you crazy?" et cetera. But then many Lebanese organizations started saying, "No, people should talk, mental health is not a taboo," et cetera. So within all of this time when the awareness on the importance of mental health started to rise, UNRWA started to include mental health services inside their clinics,

where there is a psychologist who comes maybe two days per week in order to see patients, et cetera. But I don't have solid information about this. This is what I know from a project that I worked on with UNRWA but I wouldn't say that there is a clear structure in place. Also, the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health has a mental health department, they say that their services are open for all nationalities, not only for Lebanese. A lot of the NGOs, they have a hotline where you can call, but then you should be calling from your [phone] credits. And most importantly, if you are talking specifically about child protection services, most of these services are covered by international or local NGOs. So again, they're not structured. For example, now I work at an international NGO that provides child protection case management, and they provide for the case management. They provide emergency cash assistance and these projects are based on funds. So, for example if UNHCR stopped giving us, we will cut the service. We will not give any more child protection services. In brief, no, we don't have a structure. There are scattered services through the nongovernmental organization scope, but these are based on funds. So, if the fund is cut, the services are cut. We have some initiatives by UNRWA and the Ministry of Public Health, but these are more broadly into mental health rather than child protection.

 

Asylos: Do you have any information on the situation of child labor and child marriage?

 

Walaa Kayyal: Since the economic crisis, child labor increased because we have a devaluation of the Lebanese Lira, and the father of the family cannot afford to support the whole family . So Lebanese generally, their social status has dropped because of the devaluation of the currency. However, the poorer became the most poorer, and the majority of people now are under the poverty line. So without being able to quote any figure or any study, I can say that child labor has increased in Lebanon in general. This is because people have to eat, parents cannot afford anything anymore, so they send their children to work. Before the economic crisis we saw child labor in Lebanon but it increased. Inside the camps, UNRWA schools are free of charge. So children can enter and just pay something very negligible in order to enter the UNRWA school. But then some families still decide not to send their children to school so that they come and help them with their own work. So sometimes the father is a painter, and instead of getting another person to help him, he takes his child out of school to help him. Mostly, boys are involved in child labor. You see this inside the camp more than you see it outside the camp also because inside the camp it's a closed community, they don't have much interaction with the surrounding around them. They have everything in the camp. They have a hospital inside the camp. They have clinics inside the camp. They have pharmacies. They have supermarkets. They have everything inside the camp. So there's no need for them to get outside the camp, although what they have is low quality, they have it inside. In this closed community it is very acceptable for a child, even if they are in school, to help thier dad with the work during summer, even if he's 10 years old or 12 years old. The belief is also that the boys helping their fathers during summer will become more masculine. So, this concept of child labor is very acceptable, and it's encouraged if the child is working with their father and/or mother.

 

Asylos: One question relates to UNRWA assistance regarding education, is UNRWA differentiating between children’s legal statuses and does it have an impact on children's access to education?

 

Walaa Kayyal: UNRWA welcomes all Palestinians to get an education, I would say, regardless of their legal status. However, they need to see an identification paper and UNRWA registration card in order to register people before giving them assistance. Sometimes the UNRWA allows children without papers to come to learn how to write and read. In Lebanon during the 9th grade all students in Lebanon - whether Syrian, Lebanese, Palestinians, etc. – take an official exam planned by the Lebanese government in all disciplines. If they pass, they go to the secondary level, high school. Those who don't pass have to repeat their class. This is what we call the “brevet” similar to the baccalaureate that students do during the 12th grade. So, if the principal of the school is very welcoming, they would allow stateless children to come to learn how to write and read, without doing all the homework, but attending the English and Arabic sessions for example, just enough to become literate. But then when they reach the 9th grade, they cannot apply to take the official “brevet” exam because they need to have an ID for that, they need to have something to tell who they are and in order to identify them, where a card from the government is issued based on their ID in order to access the exams.

 

Asylos: I would move on to the next section on access to the labor market. We found many sources relating to legal restrictions that prevent stateless Palestinians to work in Lebanon, especially due to the ban on syndicated professions that you also evoked in your answer to a question earlier. We also found information according to which there were amendments made to the Lebanese Labor Law and Social Security Law in 2010, which waived work permits fees for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Does it mean that Palestinians still need to obtain a permit in order to work, but that this is now free of charge?

Walaa Kayyal: Palestinians can work in the informal sector. So for example, I can open a bakery without telling the government so that I don't pay taxes. They can work as painters, plumbers, butchers, they can work in a grocery store, they can work in a market. However, when they want to work in a formal sector, they should apply for a work permit. Usually it is the organization you would like to work for which should apply for work permits. For example I work in an international NGO here which applies every year for a work permit for me. Some organizations say "We don't apply for you. You should go to the Ministry of Labor and apply for it yourself." Then you apply for a work permit and you pay for it. And even if the organization applies on your behalf, they pay for you. It's not for free, but you pay a negligible administrative fee.

 

Asylos: According to sources we consulted, the 2010 amendment of the law meant to change the restrictions so that work permits are still required but are actually free of charge.

 

Walaa Kayyal: As far as I know, international NGOs or local NGOs (because this is where the educated Palestinians go for work since we cannot work in the public sector) have a quota. So they say that 20% of their employees can be foreigners. Foreigners include Palestinians. They can be Syrians, Iraqis, Americans, whatever... and within this quota, we can be employed. Usually, this quota for foreigners is quite low because they do not want to pay for too many work permits. You see, we as Palestinians are born here and we spend all our life and even die in Lebanon. But they still consider us as foreigners and treat us like foreigners. We are treated like any other foreigner coming to the country. We have tons of laws which are passed but not enforced in Lebanon. So even if the work permit is free, you still have some administrative fees.

 

Asylos: What would be the consequences if you were caught working without a permit?

 

Walaa Kayyal: No organization will jeopardize their reputation or their relation with the government to employ you without a work permit. So it is either you have a work permit, or they can issue a work permit for you, or they don't employ you. But sometimes, and I've heard this through many research work that I have done that sometimes specifically pharmacies employ someone who is stateless without work permits. The Ministry of Public Health comes and conducts inspections and check-ups on all the pharmacies, specifically, the newly established pharmacies or the pharmacies in villages. When this inspection occurs, the stateless employees would be smuggled out because they are not allowed to work without a permit. If you were caught, this is definitely a complete termination of your work contract. What exactly happens is up to the person who caught you. They can raise an allegation and it can go to court. Or they can just say, "You're not allowed to work anymore." and terminate your contract. But then again, the owner of the pharmacy can tell you, "come tomorrow. It's fine." They don't do regular checkups. It's very rare that they go and they catch people. But it happens because I've heard specifically from stateless individuals who are educated that when the ministry comes for any checkup or they come to collect taxes, they would hide in the toilet.

 

Asylos: In a scholarly article from 2022 we found references to recent new employment restrictions affecting Palestinian businesses and increased insecurity. Do you know what they refer to?

 

Walaa Kayyal: It was a law to be issued by the previous labor minister. He wanted to deny Palestinians from work (by regulating foreign labor, but without excluding Palestinians from this regulation). There was a very big protest by all Palestinian in camps. I think they did not proceed with the regulation in the end. I think it was in 2019.

 

Asylos: Can you think of any additional practical challenges faced by stateless Palestinian because of other particularities like their legal status, because of their gender, their class, religion, or disability?

 

Walaa Kayyal: If you're a Muslim and you want to apply for work in a Christian place, they do not accept you because you are a Muslim. If you're a veiled woman neither. If you are a woman without a veil and you are going to a Muslim community, they won’t accept you. If you're a person with a disability, they definitely don't accept it because they don't think that you can get the job done. Sometimes men are not accepted in certain branches. Other women are not accepted. Everything in Lebanon is very discriminatory. When you want to apply you have to be compatible with the place you are going to work with. With the exception of international organizations and NGOs. They have a code of conduct and all the regulations that welcome everyone to join, even people with disabilities. But the majority of local organizations, shops, and private organisations, they restrict. On paper they say "We are an equal-opportunity employer," but they do take into consideration all of the mentioned above. Also, here in Lebanon, you should have a wasta [knowing someone in a position of power to help you]. So it's like a recommendation. If you belong to party X and the chief of this party said, "Can you please employ my nephew?" Others can apply for this job and be perfect candidates, but won’t get the job because someone has recommended his nephew to take the job. So, this is very central to employment in Lebanon.

Asylos: We found several sources relating to the exclusion of Palestinian refugees from the right to own real estate by law 296/2001. Are any steps currently being taken to improve Palestinians’ access to property?

 

Walaa Kayyal: All Palestinians who bought houses before 2001, they can register it and it legally belongs to them. But after 2001, Palestinians were forbidden to own any property. You have people of other nationalities who own properties but not Palestinians. For example, Syrians can own a house, Yemenis can own a house, Saudis can own a house, Kuwaitis can own a house. But Palestinians cannot own a house. And it is in the Lebanese law, it's written this way: Palestinians are not allowed to. Currently I do not know of any step taken to improve this situation for Palestinians.

 

Asylos: Next point relates to state attitudes, discrimination by state authorities, and availability of state protection. We found two sources reporting negative public statements regarding, specifically, stateless Palestinians that were made by government officials in 2022 and 2020. We were wondering if you could give us other occurrences that would be illustrative of the way stateless Palestinians are portrayed by government officials? If you think of any.

Walaa Kayyal: I think they never specifically refer to “stateless” Palestinians. However you can find a lot on the web concerning what government officials say about Palestinians, saying that the Lebanese are “bearing the burden of our Palestinian brothers and sisters on the land.” I remember that before the protests following announcements on work restrictions, the minister of labour spoke publicly on TV insisting on calling Palestinians foreigners.

 

Asylos: Another point refers to arrest and detention by state authorities. We did not find much information on these aspects in the public domain.

 

Walaa Kayyal: You will not. I do not know of any research specifically targeting this issue. You will hear many accounts relating to state violence but not much in literature. It also echoes with what we were discussing about checkpoints. The majority of Palestinians victims of state violence are detained at checkpoints or following a demonstration. Then, inside the detention centers, Palestinians are subjected to verbal, emotional, mental, and physical abuse. Many leave the detention centers with loss of hearing or sight, bruises all over their bodies, cracked bones, and sometimes they die during interrogation. Publications on these topics are minimal as they entail the action of the government or are known only within the government body. So, seeking information from them is hard and no studies as far as I know have interviewed Palestinians detained. However, maybe you can find grey literature on some interviews done by people detained or inside jails and how they are being treated. You can also find some information regarding the jails in Lebanon, which might give you a larger idea about the situation.

 

Asylos: Concerning access to justice, security, and state protection, do you have information on stateless Palestinians’ practices of reporting complaints to the police?

 

Walaa Kayyal: Usually, stateless individuals, whether they are Palestinians or Lebanese of lower status, are afraid to approach any government facility or to talk to any representative of the army. Any person who is wearing a uniform, they do not approach them. If they see them, they change their way because they are afraid. Because they cannot show any papers and can therefore be arrested and detained. So stateless persons do not approach any government facility or any person wearing a governmental uniform, whether in the army or in the general secretariat or in any security forces branch. In rare cases where they have a very good relation with the mayor in their village, they would address a complaint informally, but not more than this. If I want to go and file a complaint about any person, about my neighbour who is, I don't know, harassed me or about a teacher who insulted me, etc, the first thing they will ask is my ID. Because you need to fill another form and you need to provide a copy of your ID. And if you don't have it, then they will detain you. So they'd rather, if you want, keep silent instead of ending up detained.

 

Asylos: Do you know of state authorities registering complaints of discrimination that targets specifically status Palestinians? Would you know of any such case that has been followed up on?

 

Walaa Kayyal: No.

 

Asylos: Can you think of specific media coverage illustrative of the ways stateless Palestinians are portrayed?

Walaa Kayyal: The media circulate the Lebanese government’s narrative that cis concentrated around two points of pressure, asking UN agencies for more money to help Lebanon as well as pressuring the World Bank : “give us money, otherwise we will let the Syrian go” They always mention on TV that “Lebanon is dealing with the burden of the Palestinians”. They always mention it. This is something that is normal. And every time when they want to pressure the UN agencies to give more money to Lebanon, they say, we have the burden of Palestinians and we have the burden of Syrians. If you don't give us money, we will have to deport the Syrians.

 

Asylos: Are stateless Palestinians disproportionately affected by exploitation and other types of harm such as physical violence, sexual abuse etc? Are stateless Palestinians disproportionately affected by human trafficking?

 

Walaa Kayyal: I think the search should be specific as PRLs are not considered illegal, while Palestinians who came in 1967 and their children don't exist from the government's perspective. The same applies to newborns of Palestinians who came from Syria as their legal documents should be issued by the Syrian government, however, UNHCR deals with their cases.

 

Asylos: Is there any additional penalty eg. deportation for stateless Palestinians who committed offences, in Lebanon or outside of Lebanon?

 

Walaa Kayyal: The sentence is set by Lebanese law and the judge gives the final number. On the other hand, the juridical system in Lebanon is corrupted like any other system. So, if the judge likes Palestinians he would give the minimum years of sentence, if not s/he gives the maximum. As a community, we feel there is a difference in treatment even in prison but nothing is evident.

 

Asylos: Are stateless Palestinians permitted to gather, protest, hold a political office in Lebanon?

 

Walaa Kayyal: No political office. Protests rarely happen, the only one I recall was due to the labor law. But I can imagine that all of them would be detained if they hold a protest to defend their rights and usually Palestinians don't do protests as a result of fear. Palestinain have offices inside the camps only.

 

Asylos: Do stateless Palestinians experience any forms of reprisals as a result of gathering/protesting/gaining a public profile for speaking on a political issue?

 

Walaa Kayyal: They would definitely be detained, but this also applies to Lebanese when they do a protest.