Hunger and economic collapse drive Lebanese protesters to the streets as coronavirus lockdown eases

Lebanese protesters took to the streets from Beirut to southern Sidon along with Nabatieh, the Bekaa Valley, and Tripoli and Akkar in the north in a fresh wave of protests. The demonstrators clashed with security forces in northern Lebanon on Monday, April 27, amid a crash in the local currency and a surge in food prices. At least a dozen Lebanese banks across the country were torched and vandalized as frustrations grew among the citizens.

The demonstrations have been renewed after a nearly two-month coronavirus-induced respite in the popular uprising. As the spread of the virus has slowed to less than 10 new reported cases per day, lockdown measures were eased and protests started again.

The current protests first started in October 2019 after the government announced new tax measures on that month. According to Amnesty International, underlying frustration with the government and the political elite had been accumulating for years. Public anger has escalated in recent years over electricity and water shortages as well as the government’s failure to manage the country's waste and economic crises.

Protesters' demands include an end to government corruption, an end to the sectarian political system, the recovery of stolen funds, holding the corrupt accountable and fair tax and financial procedures.

Since the beginning of the protests, military and security forces arrested hundreds of peaceful protesters across Lebanon, including Sour, Jal el Dib, Zouk, Beirut, and Beddawi. Amnesty noted a number of violations in Lebanon, including arrests without warrant, severe beatings, insults, humiliation, blindfolding and forced confessions.

Lebanon has been hit by a financial crisis that forced the country to default on a sovereign debt payment last month. The World Bank had already grimly projected that 40 percent of people in Lebanon would slip under the poverty line by the end of 2020, meaning they live off a few dollars a day. But Lebanon's Social Affairs Minister Ramzi Musharrafieh told CNN that he believes that is now outdated and that up to 75 percent of people in Lebanon are in need of aid.

The country's Central Bank imposed harsh controls on people's foreign and domestic currency accounts, issuing a number of opaque and sometimes contradictory circulars to try and replenish foreign currency reserves, further stoking public anger and panic.

Moreover, the Lebanese pound has lost more than 50 percent of its value. The Lebanese currency appeared to be in a free fall over the last few days, selling as low as 4,000 Lebanese pounds to the dollar on the parallel market, down from a fixed peg of 1,500 pounds to the dollar in place for 30 years.

Families are also going hungry in the country. In one video shared on social media, a protester screams, "I am hungry," as he clashes with security forces. A security forces member then replies, “I’m hungrier than you.”

Most Lebanese people require financial assistance to live, according to a report this month from Human Rights Watch. The report noted desperate incidents of a father killing himself when he did not even have $1 to give his daughter for food, a man setting himself on fire in protest of the economic situation and a construction worker offering to sell a kidney to make ends meet.