By Wassim Mroueh
Daily Star staff
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BEIRUT: Dozens of protesters gathered outside the U.N. headquarters in Beirut Monday in condemnation of the violent state crackdowns on anti-government protesters in Yemen, Bahrain and Libya, while a bigger group of students stood nearby calling for revealing the fate of disappeared Imam Musa al-Sadr.
Carrying Lebanese flags and pictures of Sadr, hundreds of students, the bulk of whom came from schools in Beirut and its suburbs, took part in a sit-in called for by student leagues and youth movements to demand answers about the fate of the founder of the Amal Movement.
“People want to free the imam!” they chanted, as Amal anthems played. The sit-in was attended by MPs Ali Khreiss and Emile Rahmeh, as well the head of the Marada Movement’s youth branch, Shadi Dahdah, and representatives of other factions.
Sadr and his companions Sheikh Mohammad Yaacoub and journalist Abbas Badreddine went missing during a visit to Libya in August 1978.
Lebanon’s Judicial Council indicted in 2009 Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and 16 of his aides in the case and a trial date has been set for March.
The Libyan regime denies the allegation and claims that Sadr left the country for Italy. But the ongoing unrest in Libya has raised hopes that the mystery will be resolved. A two-week revolt against Gadhafi’s rule has plunged Libya into a cycle of chaos and bloodshed.
Hassan Qabalan, an Amal politburo member, voiced hopes that Sadr would return to Lebanon. “We have high hopes that Imam Musa al-Sadr will return to the jihad field and that Gadhafi’s regime will not escape punishment,” he said, adding that he hopes Gadhafi “will appear in chains before the Judicial Council” in Lebanon.
Qabalan told The Daily Star that the sit-in was part of efforts to “free Imam Sadr, especially as we are witnessing the last moments of Gadhafi’s rule.
“This movement is part of a 33-year old effort,” he added.
Thousands are thought to have been killed already in Libya’s unrest.
Ali Akil Khalil, the ambassador of the International Organization for Human Rights, said Monday that the latest reports he received from Libya indicated that more than 15,000 people have been killed and thousands more wounded, adding that hospitals could no more accommodate the huge number of casualties.
“IOHR representatives who arrived in Libya yesterday [Sunday] have told us that mass graves were dug in several areas and especially in some army barracks where tens of soldiers and officers, who refused to obey orders to open fire on unarmed citizens, were executed,” he said during a sit-in near the U.N. House in Downtown Beirut to condemn the state crackdowns on anti-government protesters across the region.
Khalil urged the international community to form an investigation committee to try Gadhafi and to investigate other crimes in Yemen and Bahrain. “What is the reason for this horrible international silence?” he asked.
Among the few attendees of the sit-in were representatives from the Bahraini and Tunisian oppositions.
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