Al Jazeera :
The anti-government uprising that swept across Lebanon two years ago might be a distant memory to many in the country, now struggling with compounding economic crises that have paralysed much of public life, but that is not the case for the dozens of protesters who are currently awaiting trial at military courts.
More than 200 people – including six minors – who were detained and released during the protests were summoned many months later to the military justice system, accused of engaging in acts of violence against security forces, according to the watchdog Legal Agenda. Most of them have yet to be tried.
Among those detained was Alexandre Paulikevitch. The 39-year-old dancer was speaking to a police officer at a January 2020 protest at the central bank in the capital, Beirut, when five other officers dragged him by his hair and beat him. They arrested him and took him in overnight, alongside two other protesters.
“When they interrogated me, they wanted me to confess that I sprayed paint on one of their superiors,” Paulikevitch told Al Jazeera.
In September 2020, the dancer received a call from the Lebanese military inviting him over for a “cup of coffee”, a common term security agencies use when summoning someone for questioning. His home had been destroyed in the deadly explosion at Beirut’s port the previous month that devastated much of the capital.
“I said, ‘You’re joking! Military court?'” Paulikevitch recalled. “I lost my home in the blast, I lost my money, and I can’t fix my home because the banks won’t let me withdraw my money – and now you’re sending me to military court?”
At that point, Paulikevitch and the other two protesters he was detained with would be the first protesters from the uprising with scheduled hearings at the Lebanese military justice system. But the hearing was postponed, and the military prosecution did not contact them to schedule a new hearing until the following May.
Authorities cited firecrackers in his backpack for the summoning but Bzeih, who was cleared again, said he believed it was because he had provoked the prosecution during his defence in April.
