The devastating explosion in Beirut’s port two and a half years ago remains etched in global memory. And for the victims, Lebanon’s political dysfunction and chronic corruption are deepening the catastrophe.

218 people were killed, and large parts of the city were damaged when tons of ammonium nitrate, unsafely stored, caused one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history. Some 7,000 were injured, 300,000 displaced.

The trail of evidence clearly implicated senior officials, but the country’s broken systems have been unable to deliver justice.

Yesterday, Lebanon’s general prosecutor ordered the release of all suspects detained in connection with the blast. It’s an outrageous move revealing political interference in the criminal investigation.

The domestic investigation had already stagnated, with no progress in sight due to multiple legal challenges from the politicians charged in the case aiming to replace the lead investigator.

The brazen move to release all suspects is perhaps the clearest signal yet of what’s wrong in Lebanon today.

The fact is, Lebanon is leaderless. Those in key positions of power feel no responsibility to the people. They’ll help themselves and their friends, and to heck with everyone else.

Deeply betrayed by their own top politicians, the people of Lebanon have to look elsewhere for help.

More than 162 Lebanese and international rights groups, survivors, and families of the victims are taking the initiative. They’ve called on the UN Human Rights Council to create an international fact-finding mission to help deliver the justice so desperately needed and so impossible to achieve domestically.

They must succeed where leaderless Lebanon has failed.

(written by Alice Autin) 

Pressure works!  

After years of struggle, an increasing number of children, women, and men stuck in camps in northeast Syria, are heading home – to France, Canada, and elsewhere. 

Their own governments had abandoned them for years. They’re accused of having ties with ISIS, but none of them has had a day in court. If there’s evidence of alleged crimes, that’s what should happen, right?

But no. They were simply locked up without trial and left there.

To understand the deplorable, unsafe conditions in which these 42,200 foreigners have been held, imagine this: children there have little-to-no access to school, some have died from treatable illnesses, in tent fires, or by drowning in sewage pits – all while they could instead be safe and thriving at school back home. 

The good news is that, after this week, there will be at least 70 fewer people living in these inhumane conditions. France brought back 15 women and 32 kids, and Canadian courts ruled, in two different cases, that the authorities must repatriate six women and 13 children, as well as four men. 

These repatriations are very important steps in the right direction. But thousands of people from more than 60 countries remain in the camps.  

It’s time their governments bring them home, too. 

It was a proud moment for people fighting against a repressive regime, a moment when they said, “Yes to freedom!”

What happened after November’s protests in China was grimly predictable: detentions, bogus charges, harassment of lawyers and friends of demonstrators, censorship…

But less predictable perhaps was that the protests worked – at least in part.

People had initially taken to the streets in anger at the government’s strict Covid-19 measures, and in response, the authorities abruptly lifted most restrictions nationwide.

Unfortunately, the authorities did so clumsily and in a typically authoritarian manner. With low vaccination rates among China’s older population and medical professionals caught off guard, the decision resulted in a rapid surge in Covid infections, hospitalizations, and deaths across the country.

The authorities then suppressed Covid death and infection numbers by preventing hospitals and families from registering Covid as a cause of death.

And this is when we need to remember that November’s protests were not just about Covid restrictions. They evolved into protests against authoritarian rule. Alongside chants of “End zero-Covid” were heard things like, “We want human rights!”

That’s the part the regime needs to listen to now.

(compiled by Emily Palomo)

• Lawsuit seeks to shut independent media outlet in Kyrgyzstan (HRW) 
• UN says Taliban will set new rules on women's aid work in Afghanistan (BBC News) 
• Thousands attend Invasion Day rallies in Australia (The Guardian) 
• Group of Peruvian lawmakers submits motion seeking to impeach new president (Reuters)