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Myriam Dalal

Al-Jadeed Journalist Interrogated over Facebook Status

Al-Jadeed TV reporter Rami Al-Amine was interrogated on Wednesday at the Cyber Crime and Intellectual Property Bureau, a department in the Lebanese Internal Security Forces, over a status he posted on Facebook in which he called an OTV reporter “vile.”

Amine posted the status to his Facebook profile on Monday, calling Wissam Sabbagh “vile” for apparently accepting a sports car as a “bribe” from upcoming parliamentary election candidate and businessman Rida Al-Masri. The Al-Jadeed reporter added, “I hope someone delivers my message to Wissam, in one way or another.”

Investigators from the cyber crimes unit called Amine in for questioning and said Sabbagh had filed charges against him for slander. Rami spoke with Beirut.com about what he told police during the interrogation, saying he refused to take back what he wrote about Sabbagh.

“I posted it on my personal, private account, if I wanted to slander him, I would’ve posted it on my public page, on his Twitter account or I would have shared it with people,” he said, in response to the accusations of slander, concluding that “we don’t have an actual law that includes the new media publications and if we did, like France for example, I wouldn’t be condemned because my Facebook page is my own private world. “

“It’s like I’m talking at home. Is there a law that forbids me from talking freely in my own house?”

After the interrogation, no official charges were filed against Amine.