SSNP Attack on Harqous Sparks Uproar
Journalists from various media organizations launched a sit-in protest on Friday against the assault by Syrian Social National Party members on reporter Omar Harqous.
A Huge photograph of Harqous in his hospital bed was erected in the parking lot of Future Television complex in Beirut”s Qantari district where hundreds of journalists, politicians and members of non-governmental organizations staged the one-hour sit-in to protest against the attack against a reporter on duty.
Information Minister Tareq Mitri denounced the attack on Harqous, an FTV reporter, and urged the government to confront such attempts.
Mitri also said justifying the attack is "uglier than the attack itself."
MP Elias Atallah described the SSNP as a "militia that is a branch of Syrian intelligence" assigned to attack "freedoms and the nation”s independence."
FTV manager Nadim Munla said the attack on Harqous was not a "personal dispute, but a premeditated political offence."
Munla said FTV gives the security forces and judiciary 24 hours to act decisively against the culprits, "otherwise we would take appropriate measures."
Harqous was admitted to the American University Hospital for treatment from fractures and bruises suffered during the attack by a group of SSNP members as he was covering an event in Beirut”s Hamra Street on Thursday.
FTV said Harqous was attacked by "more than 15 SSNP members."
The SSNP, in a statement by its media department, said only was person was involved in the quarrel and he had turned himself in to security forces.
The Lebanese Army Command, in a statement, said three "suspects in the attack on Harqous have been arrested."
Interior Minister Ziad Baroud, who left for the United Arab Emirates, assigned Beirut Police chief Brig. Gen. Nabil Merhi to pursue the investigation into the Harqous case.