By Hussein Dakroub
BEIRUT: The families of 11 Lebanese
hostages in Syria erected tents on the Airport Road Monday evening, hoping
government officials will increase efforts to secure the captives’ release.
The families also staged a protest
on the highway, temporarily blocking it, media outlets reported. Sheikh Abbas
Zogheib, tasked by the Higher Islamic Shiite Council to follow up on the issue
of the hostages, said that the sit-in would continue until the protesters’
demands are met and the pilgrims are freed.
He warned of escalatory moves by the
hostages’ families if their loved ones were not released soon.“We are doing our
best to keep the [hostages’] families patient. But if no results are achieved
soon with regard to securing the release of the hostages, the families will
resort to escalatory moves,” he said.
He declined to say what these
escalatory moves are, but stressed that they would not include blocking roads
with burning tires, as happened previously.
Zogheib implicitly urged former
Prime Minister Saad Hariri and other Lebanese politicians to intervene to help
secure the release of the abductees.
“We ask any Lebanese figure with a
sense of patriotism to intervene in this case. The figures that must intervene
know themselves and there is no need to name them,” he told The Daily Star.
Asked whether he meant Hariri,
Zogheib said: “Hariri or anyone who has a sense of patriotism must intervene to
end this case.”
Several days after the pilgrims were
kidnapped by Syrian rebels in May, Hariri intervened, along with Turkish
authorities, to try and secure their release and even sent his private plane to
Turkey to fly them to home.
But the release was thwarted at the
last minute by the kidnappers. Hariri’s mediation efforts were praised by
Speaker Nabih Berri and Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah.
Some relatives of the abducted men
told media outlets Monday that Hariri and Zahle MP Oqab Saqr were still
conducting mediation efforts to secure the release of the pilgrims.
Zogheib said that he was in contact
with Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim, director general of General Security, who has
been tasked by President Michel Sleiman to follow up on the issue with Turkish
and Qatari authorities.
Abu Ibrahim, the head of the
kidnappers, had refused to discuss the release of the pilgrims with General
Security and demanded that negotiations be held with Saqr, from the Future Movement,
or Col. Wissam Hasan, the head of the Internal Security Forces’ Information
Branch.
In a statement earlier Monday,
Zogheib described the issue of the Lebanese hostages as “a purely national and
humanitarian case.”
He said the hostage issue did not belong
to the opposition March 14 coalition or the Hezbollah-led March 8 alliance
only.
Speaking to reporters after a
Cabinet meeting chaired by Sleiman at Beiteddine Palace Monday, Social Affairs
Minister Wael Abu Faour quoted the president as saying that despite the
conflicting reports about the fate of the hostages in Syria, the Lebanese state
was continuing its efforts to secure their release.
A delegation of the hostages’
families met last week with Sleiman, who told them that the release of their
loved ones was imminent.
The Lebanese men, all Shiites, were abducted by
Syrian rebels near the northern Syrian province of Aleppo on May 22 after had
been on their way back to Lebanon following a pilgrimage to Shiite shrines in
Iran.http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2012/Aug-07/183693-families-stage-sit-in-until-hostages-released.ashx#axzz22qi5LSNX
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