The Lebanese Center for Human Rights (CLDH) is a local non-profit, non-partisan Lebanese human rights organization in Beirut that was established by the Franco-Lebanese Movement SOLIDA (Support for Lebanese Detained Arbitrarily) in 2006. SOLIDA has been active since 1996 in the struggle against arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance and the impunity of those perpetrating gross human violations.

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April 20, 2011

Now Lebanon - Estonia confirms men in YouTube video are abduction victims - April 20, 2011

Estonia's foreign ministry confirmed Wednesday that seven men seen begging for help in a video posted on YouTube were the tourists from the Baltic state abducted last month in Lebanon.
"The men in the video are the seven Estonians kidnapped in Lebanon," ministry spokesperson Minna-Liina Lind told AFP.
The clip was uploaded to YouTube late Tuesday but was removed Wednesday due to its content violating the video sharing site’s Terms of Service. 
The video shows the men begging Lebanese, Saudi, Jordanian and French leaders to help them return home.
Lind confirmed that the video had also been sent to the ministry on Tuesday night.
"Several institutions are dealing now with the question of finding out from where the video was posted on the Internet. We do not wish to comment from which email address we got the video," she said.
The seven men, who were on a cycling holiday, went missing on March 23 in the eastern Bekaa Valley after entering Lebanon from Syria. The motive for their abduction remains unclear.
Eleven Lebanese were charged last week with the kidnapping.
A previously unheard of group, Haraket Al-Nahda Wal-Islah (Movement for Renewal and Reform), has claimed responsibility and demanded an unspecified ransom to free the men. The claim has not been authenticated by security officials.
Authorities have said the Estonians may have been moved across the porous border to Syria.


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