The Daily Star - Prison call from sheikh ends Tripoli Islamist demonstration demanding his release, June 23 2012

By Antoine Amrieh

TRIPOLI, Lebanon: A telephone call from an imprisoned Islamist sheikh in Roumieh prison was credited with ending a street protest mobilized to demand his release Friday.

The families of Islamist inmates in Roumieh gathered for Friday prayers at Abdul-Hamid Karami Square in Tripoli, and blocked roads leading to the roundabout on the southern edge of the city. Buoyed by the release of nine Islamist inmates earlier in the week, they demanded the release of dozens of others.

Thursday night, efforts by the mufti of north Lebanon, Sheikh Malek Shaar, to halt the protest failed, as local sheikhs and the families of the inmates were determined to carry on.

But some six hours later, the protesters re-opened the streets they blocked, after a local cleric contacted Merhi by phone in prison, securing his consent to end the protest action.

Sheikh Bilal Ismail, one of the organizers of the protest, told The Daily Star that promises by politicians to secure the release of all of the Islamist inmates were not being respected.

“Three months ago, they promised us that five or ten people would be released,” he said. “It’s not enough. We don’t want to have any more meetings [with politicians].”

Jalal Matlaj, released earlier in the week, said “we experienced injustice while in prison.”

“We know what our brothers inside are going through. They are detained, they aren’t convicted, or criminals, or fugitives,” he commented.

Separately, at the Mansouri Mosque in the city, Hizb Ut-Tahrir and other Islamist groups staged a brief sit-in to demand the expulsion of Syria’s ambassador to Lebanon, because of the Syrian authorities’ violent crackdown on protestors and civilians in the country.

Meanwhile, several hundred demonstrators marched in a weekly protest against the Syrian regime after Friday prayers in the Qibbeh neighborhood.

During a speech in which he criticized the Syrian regime, Sheikh Zakaria Masri also called for the release of the Islamist detainees and decried the Army for its role in clashes with Palestinian refugees over the past week, in which four Palestinians died.

He urged the authorities to grant the refugees Lebanese citizenship, “alongside their Palestinian citizenship, just like those who receive [Lebanese] citizenship and can’t even speak Arabic.”

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2012/Jun-23/177868-prison-call-from-sheikh-ends-tripoli-islamist-demonstration-demanding-his-release.ashx#axzz1ybg35qDz