BEIRUT: The Maharat Foundation, a media watchdog, slammed Monday a policy that forces detained bloggers and Internet activists to sign a “promise of silence” before being releases, saying such documents violated freedom of speech.
Bloggers who are detained after a government official or a company file a complaint over comments on social media are forced by the Internal Security Forces’ Cyber Crimes Bureau to sign a document vowing never to verbally attack the complainant.
“They tell the activists: sign it and you will be released. These are void promises because they are violating basic human rights,” legal counsel for Maharat, Tony Mikhael, told The Daily Star.
He gave several examples of bloggers and social media users who signed the document including Kareem Hawa, the Lebanese activist who was detained last month for sharing a news story that carried comments criticizing the Interior Ministry.
The lawyer said Hawa was released after approving the document and that the 21-year-old said that he would not dare speak about anyone else, fearing detention.
Mikhael said such a practice was only common for cases such as rival neighbors that would have the two sides sign a document never to attack each other for the sake of public peace.
Although the public prosecutor’s office oversees such a process, Mikhael said the judiciary did not have the right to “issue a verdict to restrict me from the right of free speech.”
Failure to abide by the affidavit would lead to detention. A blogger who signed the document in which she vowed to refrain from attacking a company was arrested months later after the same company complained that the blog post was still up and she was making additional comments under it.
The Lebanese penal code criminalizes slander, libel and defamation. Sentences can be between two months and two years in prison, a fine, or both.
The group asked Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi to intervene to ask the public prosecutor’s office to refrain from using such documents for cases that involve publications, speech, or exchange information on the Internet.
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