BEIRUT: Internet services were disrupted in Lebanon Sunday because of diesel shortages, according to the state provider, adding another essential service to the list of casualties of the country’s snowballing economic crisis.
Imad Kreidieh, the head of state Internet provider Ogero, tweeted that starting early Sunday a major station in west Beirut, Al-Mazraa, would run out of diesel and go offline. The outage affected over 26,000 subscribers, including the country’s General Security operation rooms, he told Al-Jadeed TV.
By midday Sunday, a resident donated diesel, allowing the station to get back online, he said. Meanwhile, another neighborhood in east Beirut, Achrafieh, was out of diesel and operated on batteries.
“The situation is unbearable,” Kreidieh told the TV station.
Lebanese live with only few hours of state electricity a day and rely on a network of private generators that also depend on diesel fuel. This often leaves neighborhoods in total darkness for hours. Meanwhile, residents have to pay for multiple services, including hefty bills to generator operators, which change regularly as the crisis worsens.
Internet and telecom services already were expensive in Lebanon. In 2019, a tax imposed on WhatsApp services sparked nationwide protests that turned into a denunciation of the entire political elite.
The import-dependent country is also suffering from shortage of medicines, leaving patients dependent on black market, smuggled medicines and donations from Lebanese expats and civil groups.
Lebanon is in the throes of the worst financial and economic crisis in its history that has sunk the once middle-class country into poverty.
The crisis is rooted in years of corruption and mismanagement by the same political class that has ruled for years. Lebanon is running out of foreign reserves and has gradually lifted subsidies on essential goods, including fuel and medicines.
But the government has yet to implement a social safety program or draft a recovery plan to negotiate with the International Monetary Fund.
The crisis caused the national currency to lose more than 90 percent of its value to the dollar while banks, fearing bankruptcy, have limited people’s access to their deposits in local and foreign currency. Meanwhile inflation has soared and prices increased.
The state-owned and other telecommunication companies complain they can’t keep up with rising operational costs, including fuel.
“I will not agree to continue in this post unless I have all the authorities and tools to do my job,” Kreidieh told Al-Jadeed.
He blamed the service interruption in west Beirut on a civil servant who didn’t sign a piece of paper on time to allow him to buy needed diesel. Amid the crisis, many public sector workers have gone on strike, demanding their salaries be adjusted to rising inflation and a collapsing currency.
Kreidieh said Internet service is also affected outside of Beirut.
Lebanon faces Internet service interruption amid fuel crisis
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Lebanon faces Internet service interruption amid fuel crisis
Independent UN body condemns ‘vicious attacks’ on UN expert on Palestinian rights
- The UN Coordination Committee accused European ministers of relying on “manufactured facts“
- UN experts are commissioned to monitor and document specific human rights crises
GENEVA: An independent United Nations body on Tuesday condemned what it described as vicious attacks based on disinformation by several European ministers against the organization’s special rapporteur for Palestine, Francesca Albanese.
In the past week several European countries, including Germany, France and Italy, called for Albanese’s resignation over her alleged criticism of Israel. Albanese, an Italian lawyer, denies making the remarks.
On Friday, the Czech Republic’s Foreign Minister Petr Macinka quoted Albanese on X as having called Israel a “common enemy of humanity,” and he also called for her resignation.
A transcript of Albanese’s remarks made in Doha on February 7 seen by Reuters did not characterise Israel in this way, although she has consistently criticized the country in the past over the Gaza conflict.
The UN Coordination Committee — a body of six independent experts which coordinates and facilitates the work of Special Rapporteurs — accused European ministers of relying on “manufactured facts.”
“Instead of demanding Ms Albanese’s resignation for performing her mandate...these government representatives should join forces to hold accountable, including before the International Criminal Court, leaders and officials accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza,” the Committee said.
It said the pressure exerted on Albanese was part of an increasing trend of politically motivated and malicious attacks against independent human rights experts, UN officials and judges of international courts.
US President Donald Trump’s administration imposed sanctions on Albanese after she wrote letters to US companies accusing them of contributing to gross human rights violations by Israel in Gaza and the West Bank.
UN experts are commissioned by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council to monitor and document specific human rights crises but are independent of the organization itself.
There is no precedent for removing a special rapporteur during their term, although diplomats said that states on the 47-member council could in theory propose a motion to do so.
However, they said strong support for Palestinian rights within the body means that such a motion was unlikely to pass.
