Days after the formation of the Lebanese new government, the Interior Minister ordered to remove the concrete security barriers that were set around the ministry in Beirut Sanayeh’s neighborhood since 2014.
The concrete panels, that were painted with the Lebanese flags, choked a major road nearby which caused massive traffic every day for years.
The office of the former Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk stated that the decision of the removal of the panels was taken by minister Machnouk himself because of the “eradication of security threats related to previous terrorism files he oversaw over five years ago.”
But the office of the new minister Raya Al Hassan, who was appointed to succeed Machnouk in the new government, stated that she had taken the decision in order to “alleviate the traffic and ease the movements of the citizens.”
However, some media sources reported that the new Interior Minister, Raya Al Hassan, wanted to announce the decision of the removal of the concrete panels during a ceremony this week. But Machnouk has already made the decision on Monday evening and was implemented on Tuesday.
Raya Al Hassan previously served as a Minister of Finance. Last week, she became the most senior of four women in the 30-minister government.
The other three women who also took office are Nada Al-Bustani as Energy Minister, Violet Khairallah as State Minister for Social and Economic Rehabilitation of Youth and Women, and May Chidiac as State Minister for Administrative Development.
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