Journalist, writer, and political analyst Bechara Charbel entered into the escalating debate over the new media law, calling on the President of the Republic, General Joseph Aoun, to sign the law, and considering that the objection to the prison sentence included in it is right, while he saw that the other objections were aimed at preserving the monopoly of existing privileges and interests in the sector.
Charbel wrote, in a post on his Facebook account, addressing the President of the Republic, that he called on him to sign the media law, based on his long professional experience as a journalist who “founded four newspapers and fought freedom battles.”
Charbel considered that the new law “is in keeping with the times and international standards and ends the exclusivity of privileges,” stressing in return that the objection to the prison sentence mentioned in the text is “justified.”
However, he went further in evaluating the other objections, considering that “what remains is aimed at monopolizing the continuation of benefits on paper or air,” in reference to the controversy related to the existing privileges in the sectors of print journalism and audiovisual media.
Charbel’s position comes at the height of a division within the media body over the law that was approved by the House of Representatives on August 11, 2026 after a legislative process that extended for many years, and has since become the focus of a confrontation between parties that see it as a necessary shift to modernize Lebanese media legislation, and others demanding that the President of the Republic return it to the House of Representatives to reconsider a number of its articles.
After the law was passed, Information Minister Paul Morcos announced that Lebanon now has a new media law to replace the old legislative system, noting that it includes the establishment of an independent national media authority, regulation of the work of websites, a legal definition of the media person, and the adoption of the principle of “knowledge and news” instead of prior authorization in a number of areas, in addition to introducing provisions related to hate speech and incitement.
However, Morcos himself registered a clear objection to paragraphs “B” and “C” of Article 104, stressing that he would work to amend them after the law was passed, and that the direction he was working on was based on adopting fines instead of freedom-depriving penalties in publishing cases.
Article 104 in particular became the focus of the greatest objection, after it sparked criticism because of the possibility of imposing prison sentences in some cases related to media work, which prompted the Editors and Press Syndicates to demand the abolition of the criminalization of journalists and the removal of penalties that, according to their objections to the text, could reach imprisonment for periods ranging from 3 months to 3 years for some crimes.
The Editors and Press Syndicates called on the President of the Republic to return the law to the House of Representatives, considering that a number of the amendments they requested had not been taken into account, while the objections also included the composition of the national body supervising the sector, the organization of websites, and the issue of union pluralism.
Here, Charbel’s position clearly differs from the position of the two unions, as he separates the objection to the prison sentence, which he supports, from the objection to the essence of the new system of licensing and privileges, which he considers an attempt to maintain existing monopolistic conditions.
The issue of “privileges” referred to by Charbel goes back to one of the oldest problems in Lebanese media legislation. For decades, the issuance of political publications has been subject to a system based on a limited number of franchises, making the ability to launch a new political publication practically linked to obtaining an existing franchise or dealing with a market for these franchises.
The Parliamentary Media and Communications Committee previously explained, during the stages of preparing the law, that one of its primary goals is to end the monopoly of a limited number of political privileges and open the way for the issuance of publications according to regulatory conditions and controls, instead of maintaining a system whose roots go back to the 1950s.
Over the years, the old system led to some journalistic privileges acquiring a value independent of the media activity itself, as privileges remained for publications that had effectively ceased publication or were no longer active, while the owners of some of them maintained them legally despite the limited or lack of actual journalistic production.
This is why the issue of liberating the publication of publications from the exclusivity of privileges was one of the most controversial points since the beginning of the preparation of a modern media law, as its supporters considered that it opened the market to new institutions and journalists, while unions and franchisees expressed, over various stages, reservations about abolishing the existing system.
As for the law that was recently approved by the Council, it comes after more than 15 years of discussions and successive formulations within the parliamentary committees, and in recent months it witnessed an acceleration in its path, before it was approved by the joint committees on July 9 and then its discussion reaches the general assembly.
Morcos had confirmed after its approval that the text was not considered complete according to him, announcing the start of work on an expedited law that includes amendments that were not finalized, most notably addressing the two articles related to prison penalties, in cooperation with union bodies, representatives, and experts.
Thus, Bechara Charbel’s position comes in the face of calls to completely restore the law, as he calls for separating what he considers to be a loophole that requires amendment, that is, the prison sentence, and the structural reforms that he sees as necessary to modernize the media and open the sector to wider competition.
This debate puts the President of the Republic in front of two conflicting positions within the media environment itself: the first calls on him to return the law to the House of Representatives before issuing it to eliminate the loopholes, and the second, expressed by Charbel, calls on him to sign it and not allow the disagreement over some articles to overturn reforms that he considers essential, especially ending the exclusivity of privileges and aligning legislation with the transformations imposed by digital media.
