Lina is a Lebanese citizen who lives in Beirut, where she has experienced both highs and lows throughout the Lebanese uprising and its numerous protests. Lina envisioned, and continues to see, Lebanon’s future as a country with a shared narrative and a peaceful way of life. This has been the driving force behind everything she has done, every demonstration she has attended, and every act of resistance she has participated in. She has taken part in numerous protests, and several of her rights, including her right to peaceful assembly and demonstration, her right to a safe life, her right to her own opinion and expression, and others, have been violated.
Lina participated in a protest on Friday, July 14, 2021, in front of the building where former Minister of Interior Mohamad Fahmi resided, after hearing about a call to protest from the families of the Beirut blast victims. Demonstrators came to protest the minister’s refusal to allow the police forces to carry out the rulings made by Tarek Bitar, the case’s lead judge. Mohamad Fahmi was defying an order to examine various judges and members of parliament in connection with the calamity that struck Beirut on August 4th.
Although Lina was not particularly surprised, she lamented violent outbreaks against the peaceful chanting group composed of mainly women, assuming that protesting as a woman is normally safer due to the conventional idea that women should be treated with respect. Along with the other women, Lina was pushed and pressed by security personnel to the extent of plunging into each other and onto the ground. The pain she suffered from being shoved, specifically in her arm and hip, was apparent in every movement she made during the next couple of weeks after the incident. This was not the first time she had suffered this kind of affliction, and she believes it is a common pattern among security forces as they answer to the same leading class. Lina and the other women’s right to peacefully assemble, through applied physical force, as well as their right to openly voice their disapproval of the minister’s behavior, were both infringed.
“of course, my rights were violated! We were expressing our hurt, pain, and fear, as well as our anger for the relatives of the victims. Is it forbidden for me to show and express my emotions? That is the most inhumane of all the violations!”
“Of course!” she exclaims, “of course, my rights were violated! We were expressing our hurt, pain, and fear, as well as our anger for the relatives of the victims. Is it forbidden for me to show and express my emotions? That is the most inhumane of all the violations!”
Each demonstration she took part in was a vehicle for her to express her displeasure with the Lebanese government’s injustice, oppression, and cruel force.
She was never armed, because she never had any intention of harming anyone; her sole purpose was to protest in order to bring about change, and to secure a better country and way of life for her children.
On September 21, 2021, during a peaceful sit-in facing the entrance of Ghassan Khoury’s home in Rmeile, the former prosecutor in the Beirut port explosion case, she was yet again subdued by an excessive display of force. Security forces present at the premises thrusted and insulted Lina and the group of peaceful women – dubbed ‘Noun’- various times, and their intimidation methods quickly escalated to the use of additional fear by blatantly pointing their machine guns at the assembled women. This demonstration was organized by a handful of women including Ms. Boubess herself and Noun, with shared aspiration for justice; jointly protesting the lack of action and due course to be led by the judge Khoury. Lina mentioned that although many of the individuals within the security force who resort to violence are often identified by a variety of people and sources, it is never followed up on by Lebanese officials. With that in mind, Lina does not let these acts of terror demotivate her, rather quite the opposite. “The use of violence in protests does not worry me,” she says. “We are mothers, and we are mothers who want peace. The only thing I’m communicating with the security officers is that we need to get along; I’m their mother, and they’re my boys.” She would do it all over again, even if her security and right to safety have been violated and she has to come to endure and deal with a variety of risks and threats of various natures and numerous situations.
Lina believes it is her responsibility to continue fighting for the Lebanon she envisions, a Lebanon where people of various beliefs, sects, regions, identities, and so forth may come together and live in harmony. Her devotion to creating a foundation for and protecting the next generation, which extends from her own two sons to the multitudes of so-called strangers she has met goes hand in hand with that duty. Lina’s dedication and willingness to put her own safety on the line has served as a lucky turn of events to a young man who happened to be standing next to her in the crowd, in Riad Al Solh Square on November 17, 2019, when the security forces engaged in pursuing him on; they were unprepared for a determined Lina standing between them and their young target. She placed herself in front of him, clutching him tightly. Refusing to let go of him and allow him to meet a torturous fate. Lina was pushed and jerked around by several security officers trying to reach their target, yet she held on firmly in the face of the brutality and pain inflicted onto her arms and hands. The pain she suffered from being jostled around by members of the security force was evident throughout the following days.
Aware that many of her rights were violated, such as her rights to freedom of opinion and to live free of the threat of recurring abusive and degrading treatment, Lina continues to uphold her beliefs and convictions; refusing to surrender to the injustices she witnesses daily. Nor is she willing to give up until she is guaranteed a brighter future for her children and generations to come. She continues to long for her “ideal Lebanon,” one she got a taste of on November 22, 2019, in the midst of Independence Day celebrations in Martyrs’ Square, with a display of diversity, love, and unity of the Lebanese people.
