BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanese police beat back protesters with clubs and sticks and arrested dozens of people in downtown Beirut on Wednesday as a second session of dialogue among politicians got underway, the latest confrontations this city has seen over the country’s summer trash crisis.
The small group of activists had gathered near the parliament building, where the meeting was taking place. Some of the protesters had brought eggs to pelt politicians’ convoys while others tried to block the street.
Baton-wielding riot police soon clashed with the protesters, at one point dragging two of them on the ground and violently beating both. Some protesters shouted at the police: “Shabiha,” Arabic for thugs. Ambulances rushed to the scene and took the wounded away. The main group behind the protests, “You Stink,” said 40 people were arrested.
By evening, dozens gathered outside government offices, demanding the release of those detained and chanting against the government. “We, the people, are the red line,” they shouted.
Some threw trash-filled bags at the barbed wire that has been erected around the offices, while others burned trash in protest.
Later, the official National News Agency said the prosecutors ordered the release of all those detained. But the protesters remained in Beirut’s Riad el-Solh Square, which has become the epicenter in the standoff between the government and the protesters.
“We will stay here until the last detainee is released,” said Arabi al-Andari, who was released and came to join the protesters again.
A crisis over uncollected trash in the Lebanese capital has ignited the largest protests in the country in years and has emerged as a festering symbol of the government’s paralysis and failure to provide basic services.
Heaps of garbage accumulated in Beirut’s streets after authorities closed the capital’s main landfill on July 17 and failed to provide an alternative.
The protests quickly moved beyond just the trash in the streets to target an entire political class that has dominated the country and undermined its growth since the civil war ended in 1990. Lebanon has a sectarian power-sharing system that often leads to incessant bickering and cronyism among the country’s politicians.
Last week, the Cabinet adopted a plan to end the garbage crisis by temporarily moving the trash to new landfills, but it has not been implemented yet. The protest organizers say it is not sustainable.
“We gave the government a chance to solve the trash crisis and release the detainees, they didn’t do anything,” said Asaad Thebian, a leader of the “You Stink” movement. He promised further escalation and called for mass protests.
At one point, a group of young men on motorcycles believed to be supporters of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri attacked a gathering of protesters who have been staging a sit-in and a hunger strike outside the Environment Ministry for two weeks, uprooting their tents and throwing large stones at them.
Thousands of people have taken part in huge demonstrations over the past two weeks. Among other things, they are demanding new parliamentary elections, to be followed by presidential elections.
Lebanon has been without a president for over a year, and members of parliament have controversially extended their term twice amid disputes over an election law.
