A number of March 14 figures called for the expulsion of Syrians loyal to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, for purportedly provoking the Lebanese during their participation in the Syrian elections in Lebanon.
“The Lebanese government must deport pro-regime Syrians [because] the provocations they carried out in Lebanon under the pretext of participating in the elections are proof that… they do not fit the refugee profile,” March 14’s General Secretariat said Wednesday in a statement issued following its regular meeting.
Lebanese Forces MP Fadi Karam also called for the return of pro-regime Syrians to their country.
“Let Bashar al-Assad’s shabiha [militia] leave Lebanese territory immediately and go support him on their land, instead of bothering and provoking the Lebanese,” Karam tweeted on Wednesday.
MP Marwan Hamadeh lashed out at the voting, calling it a “shameful scene.”
“Within a few meters of the abandoned Baabda [presidential] Palace and a short distance from the revered Defense Ministry, Syrian Intelligence and its local allies [in reference to Hezbollah] organized dishonorable marches of the fascist [Syrian] regime’s shabiha,” the March 14 parliamentarian said in a statement.
He further lambasted the Assad regime by claiming that “the role of the Syrian regime’s embassy overrode all considerations of Lebanese sovereignty.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Syrian citizens living in Lebanon made their way to a polling station set up in the Syrian embassy in the town of Yarzeh, near Beirut, to participate in presidential elections for their war-torn country.
Disturbances were reported in Yarzeh, as Syrian voters allegedly failed to abide by Lebanese security forces’ directions.
The Shiite party Hezbollah was purported to have provided financial and security cover for pro-regime voters, in an attempt to have their ally, Bashar al-Assad, reelected as Syria’s head of state.
The embattled country is currently running its first multi-candidate presidential election, in which Assad is expected to secure victory, despite the ongoing conflict that has led to the death of 150,000 people and displaced approximately nine million others.
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