To break with past cycles of impunity, Amnesty International calls on the Lebanese authorities to ensure that the investigation they have announced into Lokman Slim’s murder is transparent, impartial, and independent. The findings should be made public and the perpetrators must speedily be brought to justice
Responding to news of the tragic murder of Lebanese intellectual and activist Lokman Slim today, Lynn Maalouf, Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International, said:
“Lokman Slim was at the forefront of the struggle against impunity in post-war Lebanon actively advocating for the right of the families of the missing and disappeared to justice and truth, alongside families’ associations a handful of other organizations and activists brave enough to defy the reigning pattern of impunity.
“Today Lokman Slim is the victim of this decades-old pattern of impunity, which has ensured that past and present targeted killings of activists, journalists and intellectuals remain unpunished, and for which the Lebanese state is ultimately responsible. His shocking killing raises serious fears of a return to targeted killings, fears made all the more acute by the state’s failure to deliver any justice for past similar horrific incidents. The Lebanese people deserve justice for the relentless crimes they have been subjected to over the decades and to this present day.
“Today also marks six months since the explosion that hollowed out the capital city Beirut, its people and its spirit, and for which there has been no accountability.
“To break with past cycles of impunity, Amnesty International calls on the Lebanese authorities to ensure that the investigation they have announced into Lokman Slim’s murder is transparent, impartial, and independent. The findings should be made public and the perpetrators must speedily be brought to justice.”
