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On a rainy Sunday in downtown Beirut, in
St. George Cathedral at Place d'Etoile, the family of murdered Lebanese journalist
Gebran Tueni gathered with the staff of his newspaper, Al-Nahar, to hold
a memorial marking the fifth anniversary of Tueni's assassination. The memorial
was held in the same church where Tueni was married in 2001, and where his
funeral was held in 2005, as if to complete the circle of life and memory.Tueni, the managing director and leading
columnist for Al-Nahar, was murdered with impunity
on December 12, 2005, when a bomb targeted his armored car. During the
memorial, the Orthodox bishop of Beirut, Elias Aoude, reminded the group that
Tueni, who was also a member of parliament, once said, "We will continue to
tell the truth because only the truth makes us free." Five years after his death,
however, the truth about his murder remains unknown.
Tueni's picture still hangs in CPJ's
office in New York. He wears a red scarf and holds his pen, the powerful weapon
with which he sharply criticized Arab regimes, Syrian policies in Lebanon, and Lebanese
sectarianism. After the religious ceremony, Tueni's daughter Michelle said, "Each
year passes by us and time stops. Your absence becomes presence and today your
presence is stronger than before." She assured her father that her two younger sisters, Nadia and Gabrielle, have entered school and that they keep
asking about him. "I'm also happy to tell you that you have a grandson," she
said. "His name is Gebran."
There are people, she said, who "advise
us to forget, but forgetting you is impossible. There are some who stopped
their forward march under the pretext of safety and stability, as if punishing your
murderers would be a mistake."
The daughter's allusion referred to reports that the U.N.-backed Special
Tribunal for Lebanon will issue indictments in the 2005 murder of Rafik al-Hariri against Hezbollah members, which has caused
political tension in Lebanon amid fears of the collapse of the unity
government; the speaker of the parliament, Nabih Berri, warned in October of civil
strife. A 2007 report by the U.N. International Independent Investigation Commission found evidence that
Samir Qassir's and Tueni's murder might be linked to the al-Hariri assassination.
Qassir, an Al-Nahar columnist critical of Syrian influence in
Lebanon, was killed in June 2005 when a bomb placed in his car detonated outside
his Beirut home.
The choice between safety and truth is a
difficult one. But for Michelle Tueni, it is a clear choice, far from the
politics of the tribunal. She is a daughter that wants and has the right to see her father's murderers punished.
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It does not need a Special Tribunal to know who assassinated Mr. Tueni . . . It was clear that Syria wanted him out of the equation and ordered his killing! STL has a phone record (voice recording) between an officer in the Syrian army and a witness stating that the order was given to carry out the assassination. Mr. Tueni apparently was warned but returned to Lebanon from France anyways! A big loss to Lebanon . . . Sad
Wow, still accusing Syria?