Beirut
Lebanese media broadcast interviews with the US ambassador on Sunday, ignoring a ruling by a judge who banned the diplomat from television for a year over remarks that criticized the powerful Shiite movement Hezbollah. Hezbollah is the main political force behind the Lebanese government. Washington considers the heavily armed pro-Iran movement to be a terrorist group. In an interview with Saudi-owned AlHadath television on Friday, US ambassador Dorothy Shea said Hezbollah’s behavior was preventing Lebanon from properly dealing with a deep economic crisis. A Shiite judge in the southern city of Tyre ruled on Saturday that Shea’s comments had incited sectarian strife, and banned broadcasting interviews with her for a year. State-owned National News Agency said media that violate the ban would be fined $200,000. But the government has repudiated the court ruling, while criticizing Shea over the remarks that had prompted it. Information Minister Manal Abdel Samad tweeted that while she understood the judge’s concerns about diplomats meddling in Lebanon’s internal affairs “no one had the right to prevent the media from covering news, or to curb press freedoms.”—Reuters
