July 25, 2010 - Now Lebanon - Future Movement: No bargain over justice in Hariri assassination

Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s Future Movement will not bargain over justice in the 2005 assassination of former PM Rafik Hariri, according to a statement issued on Sunday at the end of the movement’s two-day founding conference.

Hariri was elected earlier in the day as the head of the Future Movement, which was officially founded as a political party on Saturday. The movement also elected an 18-member political bureau.

The final statement, read by former Future bloc MP Mustafa Allouch, said, “There is no contradiction between justice and civil peace. Rather, civil peace is safeguarded by justice, while violence and coercion are counter to stability and peace.”

The statement called on Lebanese factions to avoid intimidation and to cooperate in order to discover the truth behind the assassination of Rafik Hariri and other March 14 alliance figures.

The statement praised what it called the state-to-state relations between Lebanon and Syria and supported the PM’s moves to enhance the relations based on the respect of each country’s sovereignty.