The Military Court, headed by Brigadier General Wassim Fayyad, looked into two files related to the prosecution of Hezbollah opponents through statements and positions they made on social media platforms, which exposed them to judicial accountability.
In absentia, the court tried activist Joumana Jabbara after she was charged with “praising the spokesman for the Israeli enemy army, Avichay Adraee, and thanking him for bombing some sites belonging to Hezbollah, stressing that she supports peace with Israel and calling on others to follow her example despite the widespread killing and destruction that Israel has caused, especially in the south, due to the aggression it is waging against Lebanon.”
This was in November of the year 2024, when Adraee was quick to respond to Jabara, expressing to her “his sincere thanks and gratitude for her kind words.” This necessitated filing a complaint against her before the Military Public Prosecution, which claimed against her. She was then referred before the military investigating judge, who issued an arrest warrant against her in absentia, so the court issued a ruling in absentia against her after informing her, who ruled that she should be imprisoned for 15 years. Stripping her of her civil rights and executing the arrest warrant issued against her.
As for Dr. Ahmed Yassin, a university professor residing in France, he is known for his political positions and analyzes in which he criticizes Hezbollah. He is widely active on YouTube and social media platforms. One of his comments led to his being prosecuted, as he was accused of “inciting the enemy to bomb the ancient citadel of Baalbek by publishing allegations that it contains missiles, military weapons, and tunnels for Hezbollah.”
While Yassin did not appear before the military court at all stages of the investigation, the military court also sentenced him to 15 years in prison, stripping him of his civil rights and executing the arrest warrant issued against him, in addition to fining him four million Lebanese pounds.
The prosecution of this category of activists has sparked widespread criticism about the boundaries between freedom of expression and the right to political criticism in light of the sensitive political and security conditions that Lebanon has witnessed since the start of the first Israeli aggression in October of 2024.
