Fri 18 October 2019:
Thousands of protesters march for a second day in anti-government demonstrations over country’s economic crisis.
In Lebanon’s biggest protest in years, thousands gathered outside the government headquarters in central Beirut on Thursday evening, forcing the cabinet to backtrack on plans to raise a new tax on WhatsApp voice calls.
Tear gas was fired as some demonstrators and police clashed in the early hours.
The unrest led Prime Minister Saad Hariri to cancel a cabinet meeting scheduled for Friday to discuss the 2020 draft budget.
Lebanese media has said he would instead make a speech on the protests.
Fires lit on the street in central Beirut were smouldering on Friday morning. Pavements were scattered with the glass of several smashed shop-fronts and billboards had been torn down.
“(March) 14 and (March) 8, they turned the country into a dekkeneh”#اجا_وقت_نحاسب #لبنان_ينتفض #Lebanon pic.twitter.com/WO1MrxB5wg
— joey ayoub (@joeyayoub) October 18, 2019
Protesters blocked roads in the north, the south and the Bekaa Valley, among other areas on Friday, the National News Agency (NNA) reported. Schools were closed on the instructions of the government.
“We are one people united against the state. We want it to fall,” said a protester in the town of Jeita, some 20km (12.4 miles) from Beirut. “Revolution, revolution!” they chanted.
In Beirut, several thousands of people marched near the government’s Serail headquarters chanting “the people want the downfall of the regime”.
Only Lebanese flags .. Listen to them #Lebanon pic.twitter.com/8LfGPMiwq2
— Larissa Aoun (@LarissaAounSky) October 18, 2019
This was the second wave of nationwide protests this month.
In a country fractured along sectarian lines, the unusually wide geographic reach of these protests has been seen as a sign of deepening anger with politicians who have jointly led Lebanon into crisis.
The anti-government protests in a country mired in economic crisis entered their second day on Friday.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
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