Lawyer Hanna Al-Bitar said that depositors “have become martyrs in Martyrs’ Square,” considering that “the political and banking corruption system is responsible for stealing the Lebanese people’s money,” and added that what is known as the “financial gap” is in fact a “moral gap.”
Al-Bitar believed that banks have achieved significant profits over thirty years, considering that talk of their losses is “misleading,” pointing out that many of them continue to open branches abroad, while depositors in Lebanon are unable to recover their money. He stressed that any reform of the banking sector must begin by returning deposits to their owners.
For his part, former Minister Essam Sharaf El-Din held the government responsible for the situation, accusing it of “conspiring against depositors.” He also criticized political parties for not supporting the issue of recovering deposits and not participating in the sit-in, even though it is, in his words, “a right issue that affects people’s rights.”
