According to their website, the Lebanese Swiss Association (LSA) for Human Rights protection is a nonprofit organization that aims at achieving, in Lebanon, the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations. To do so, they take the judicial route by prosecuting those responsible for the violation of the human rights of the Lebanese people. This association is fighting for something we already know: the nonexistence of human rights in Lebanon.
Since the beginning of the revolution, people took to the streets and are still there. The Lebanese Swiss Association saw that no one is listening to the cries of the Lebanese population and that it has become urgent to do something about it.
Henceforth, they took it upon themselves to write to the United Nations (UN), this past Tuesday, November 26, addressing the letter to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
They highlighted some of the most important issues Lebanon is facing, starting with the suffering of children: “In Lebanon, children die at the door of hospitals because parents do not have enough money to pay for their children’s hospitalization. In Lebanon, some children grow up and have not yet entered school.”
They mentioned the environment, which is in distress: “In Lebanon, waste has spread to the streets because there is no environmentally friendly plan to get rid of the issue of waste and pollution.”
They shed the light on the poverty in Lebanon, and the poor whose suffering has increased more in the past year, stating: “In Lebanon, there is no social assistance system that is required to provide nutrition, housing, and clothing for those below the poverty line.”
The letter also emphasized that the judicial system in Lebanon is political and unfair; it goes after the weak and powerless while those in power are immune to prosecution; people in power who stole from their people and have led to the plummeting of the economy and, consequently, to poverty and starvation.
The purpose of the letter of the LSA aims to echo the cries of the Lebanese people in hope that the world will help in establishing a tribunal for the corrupt, those responsible for the human and financial crimes practiced against the Lebanese people.
The letter also stated the following:
“On 17 October, Lebanese took to the streets to demand the restoration of their stolen rights and to demand the prosecution of all those who participated in widespread corruption in their country.”
“From 17 October to the present day, the Lebanese have been protesters demanding rights and dignity, and therefore they are being oppressed by an authority that does not have the right and does not recognize dignity.”
The letter continues with a request for an international tribunal “to hold human and financial crimes that have been, and continue to be, practiced against the Lebanese people. Because if the courts in Lebanon are deaf and blind, the International Criminal Court in The Hague hears and sees,” the letter concluded.