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LEBANON-POLITICS-PROTEST
Lebanon protesters block roads to keep revolt alive
BEIRUT, Oct 28, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Lebanese demonstrators set up barricades
and parked cars across key roads Monday to protest corruption and press their
demands for a radical overhaul of their country’s sectarian political system.
Defying pleas from Lebanon’s top leaders, protesters sought to keep the
country on lockdown by cutting off some of the main thoroughfares, including
the main north-south highway.
A poster urging motorists to block roads with their cars started
circulating on social media on Sunday.
By Monday morning, some major routes were closed off by hundreds of angle-
parked vehicles, others by groups of protesters sitting on the road.
The Lebanese security forces had been expected to make a new attempt at
reopening the roads as the country faced more paralysis after 11 days of
paralysis.
The army and the country’s top security agencies had agreed at the weekend
to a military-led plan to clear roadblocks, but their efforts have been met
with resistance from demonstrators.
On Sunday, tens of thousands of protesters joined hands nationwide to form
a 170-kilometre (105-mile) human chain stretching from Tripoli in the north
to Tyre in the south.
The event drew Lebanese of all ages and backgrounds, many of them draped
in the national cedar flag.
Organisers said the event symbolised a national civic identity that has
emerged since the start of the protests on October 17.
The unprecedented mobilisation was sparked a proposed tax on voice calls
via messaging apps, but quickly morphed into a massive grassroots push to
drive out a political elite which has remained virtually unchanged in three
decades.
The protesters are demanding more freedom, better services and an end to
corruption and sectarian politics, among other things.
Lebanon’s political leaders have appeared shell-shocked, trying
simultaneously to express sympathy for the protest movement while warning of
chaos in the case of a power vacuum.
BSS/AFP/GMR/1247 hrs