Persecuting pro-revolution Lebanese people all the way to their work abroad with the intent to harm their source of income, their livelihoods, and also attempt to get them deported – that’s a new kind of low.
But that’s what’s happening to the Lebanese activist and comedian Amani Danhach at the hands of triggered Aoun supporters.
During the past year, Amani, commonly known by her handle Ammounz, has become one of the most influential voices of the Lebanese Revolution.
All the way from Dubai, Amani’s witty sense of humor has lightened up social media with genius satirical comments about every Lebanese political party – basically saying what is always on every independent Lebanese person’s mind.
And unlike many activists, she doesn’t curse, yell, or scream. She is funny, poised, and charismatic in the delivery of her comments that she even has Lebanese grandmothers smiling when she speaks.
Amani, however, has recently fallen victim to a smear campaign by the “Aounist electronic army” merely for being the voice of sheer freedom and only expressing her opinion.
As if having to leave your beloved (and messed up) country to find better opportunities wasn’t enough, members of the Free Patriotic Movement are trying to get Amani fired and deported by emailing her employer and UAE authorities with the sole complaint that she “insulted” the President.
Whoever emailed her place of employment also attached this video below as their alleged proof of their claim, which makes it even weirder that the company has relied on it and the above letter to take action against one of its staff for her freedom of expression.
Watch it, it’s kind of catchy.
Even though Amani was on unpaid leave due to the pandemic, the email ended up causing the multinational company to cancel her residency.
The company’s main reason was that it didn’t want to get entangled or affiliated with political parties. Yet it just did when abiding by the demand of a non-UAE political party that isn’t even based in the UAE.
But that didn’t shake Ammounz, who says she’s not threatened by these hate acts because she lives in a civilized and democratic country that appreciates and respects its residents.
In trying to silence her, the Aounists electronic army only made her voice louder and gave her and her cause for Lebanon more visibility. That’s commonly known as the Streisand effect.
Their efforts certainly backfired. Those who didn’t know her or missed knowing her “voice” got to now know her and go through her social media posts and videos.
As Amani assured in an interview with Al-Hadath, she isn’t going anywhere.
Nor are the countless of Lebanese who have been practicing their right of freedom of expression to call for reforms and a Lebanon free of negligence and corruption.
That has been relevant in Amani’s case that got her massive support with the hashtag كلنا_امونز# (“we’re all Ammounz”) trending on Twitter.
Even people who don’t know her are supporting her, only because she’s just one among the millions wanting a better Lebanon and that move against her was an attack against freedom of speech and expression.
A Twitter user commented that the same happened to him in Lebanon a while back and got him fired from work.
Several tweets went even criticizing the low level of education of the accuser who wrote the letter.
