As the world marks today (Friday) the Press Freedom Day, Lebanon is still witnessing attempts to muzzle free voices and to alter the country's identity into one of subordination and suppression. The lawsuits filed against Voice of Lebanon radio host Nawal Lichaa Abboud and Kataeb website writer Sonia Rizk serve as a watertight proof of this new bitter reality.

After Rizk was summoned before the ISF's Cybercrimes Unit over an article she had written about the corrupt behavior of a minister's adviser, her colleague in Voice of Lebanon radio station is now subject to the same intimidating and suppressive policy as she is subject to a lawsuit filed by the President of the Lebanese University, Fouad Ayyoub, over an episode she had hosted to discuss the conditions of the state-run academic establishment.

“How many journalists and opinion-makers will still have to be prosecuted before you realize that freedom in Lebanon is stronger than your abuse of power, intimidation and blackmail?”

Freedom has become chained up by the greed of some politicians. It needs to be unchained before the major collapse takes place.

The freedom of expression is not a viewpoint; either it exists or does not exist.

Although some have been constantly trying to muzzle us, all their attempts are doomed to failure because they must be ignoring our past and the history of this country. Lebanon has always breathed the air of freedom, and whoever stands in the way of this fact will himself be cast out by history.