Fascinating Details Emerge On Lebanese Facebook Prisoners

Benjamin Ryan of Now Lebanon has followed up on its previous story concerning the 4 Lebanese students who were jailed because of Facebook wall postings…

This is how it all started:

A Facebook group began as a collection of juvenile jokes revolving around a fellow student. After complaining to university authorities and being told that the matter was not a university concern, the woman took her case to the Zahle attorney general, Abdullah Bitar. When Bitar advised her to come back with evidence of a crime, she and a friend monitored the site for a few weeks and returned to Bitar with printed transcripts of “wall” conversations. (“Walls” are the space on each Facebook member and group profile that allows friends to post-public messages). After reviewing the transcripts, Bitar called the students in for questioning.

After interrogations:

The attorney general declared that he had enough evidence for an arrest and transferred the four men to Zahle prison. With the court offices closed on Saturday and Sunday, the young men were kept in prison until Monday, at which point a hearing was set for later that week. On Thursday, January 17, the judge at that hearing released each of the four on LL 500,000 bonds and set a final hearing for February 28.

Benjamin does a great job examining the intricacies of the case, involving a lot of legal details. But I’d like some of my readers with a legal background to contribute: Can you explain, in plain language, what the problem was, and what can be done to prevent such a thing from happening in the future, or at least how one can add more fairness to the system?

 

 How about naming and shaming as a tactic? Maybe petitionning facebook to use some of its own legal muscles? To start, here’s the facebook profile of Antony Jlailaty, one of the Facebook victims of our legal system.