Ayman Mhanna

Freedom seeker in Lebanon & around. #SamirKassir Foundation @SK_Eyes Director. #EYL40. Former @mediaGFMD Director. @CoENatolin visiting prof. Proud 2xDad

[Ayman Mhanna @AymanMhanna]

Merci @ericvalmir et @PrixBayeux pour l’invitation à la soirée consacré au Liban, aux guerres à répétition qui le minent et au travail admirable des journalistes qui y consacrent (et parfois y laissent) leur vie. L’occasion de rappeler l’engagement de @SK_Eyes pour la liberté et la sécurité des journalistes et pour l’intégrité de l’information. Touché par le public extraordinaire du Prix et par les témoignages de @SOFIAAMARA @HayekCaroline @ArthurSarradin @Philippe_Rochot @wissam_charaf

[Ayman Mhanna @AymanMhanna]

Lebanon’s new Media Law is a major achievement after 16 years of advocacy. It protects sources, ends pretrial detention in media cases, expands union freedoms, increases ownership transparency and opens the media market. Article 104, however, must go. It is poorly formulated and keeps prison sentences as an option, even though they have been removed from the rest of the text.
@TobyMendel and I explain why in this @lorienttoday op-ed https://t.co/tvh2RmK95G @SK_Eyes

[L'Orient-Le Jour @LOrientLeJour]

🎥 #Questions_à | Où en est la liberté d’expression au Liban aujourd’hui ? En quoi la nouvelle loi sur l’information
modifie-t-elle le travail des médias ?

@AymanMhanna fait le point.

🎤 @ReelPolitiks

[Volker Türk @volker_turk]

I welcome the Lebanese Parliament's decision formally to abolish the death penalty, and call on others to follow its lead.

In a country that has experienced profound loss and suffering, this decision represents a powerful commitment to the right to life.
https://t.co/15a3wx9QKT

[Jean-Noël Barrot @jnbarrot]

Le Liban devient aujourd'hui le premier pays du Moyen-Orient à abolir la peine capitale.

Je salue le vote historique et courageux du parlement libanais qui montre que le Liban, malgré les épreuves qu'il subit, conserve une voix singulière dans la région, et qu'il demeure un exemple par sa capacité à faire vivre les valeurs démocratiques et les libertés qui sont au fondement de son existence.

C'était l'engagement pris à Paris il y a un mois lors du 9ème Congrès mondial contre la peine de mort : il a été tenu.

Alors que beaucoup reste à accomplir sur le chemin de la paix et des réformes, le Liban et le peuple libanais peuvent compter sur le soutien indéfectible de la France.

[Randa Slim @rmslim]

This is an excellent, overdue move by the Lebanese Parliament. Kudos to the hundreds of activists who worked for years to make this a reality. Despite the many challenges facing the civil society sector, #Lebanon remains the country in the Middle East where civic activism matters most

[Rémi Kasprzyk @KasprzykRemi]

Cette photo mérite absolument tous les prix. Elle a même sa place au Louvre.

Elle relate précisément l’inertie de l’individu face à l’effondrement.

Regardez la composition. Un chef-d’œuvre involontaire.

Au premier plan, le sable doré, les tongs abandonnées, la glacière. Le décor ordinaire du bonheur estival. Deux personnages assis, de dos, comme dans un tableau de Caspar David Friedrich. Sauf que Friedrich peignait des hommes contemplant le sublime. Ici, ils contemplent la catastrophe. Et ils ne bougent pas.

Au centre, le parasol. Publicitaire, criard, dérisoire. Un pastis face à l’apocalypse. C’est presque trop parfait : la France qui prend l’apéro pendant que le monde brûle. Aucun scénariste n’aurait osé.

Et puis le ciel. Les deux tiers de l’image. Cette muraille de fumée qui avale la lumière, ce dégradé d’ocre et de noir digne d’un Turner. La nature qui reprend la palette des maîtres pour peindre notre propre fin.

La femme photographie l’incendie avec son téléphone. Mise en abyme totale : nous documentons notre disparition au lieu de l’empêcher.

Cette image dit tout. Le déni, le confort, l’habitude. Nous sommes tous sur cette plage. Nous voyons tous le nuage. Et nous restons assis, parce que l’eau est bonne et qu’on a posé nos congés.

Les historiens de l’art parleront un jour de cette photo comme on parle du Radeau de la Méduse.

Sauf que cette fois, le naufrage, c’est nous qui le regardons depuis la plage.
💔🌍

[Brett Meiselas @BMeiselas]

This clip is truly incredible.

Wolf Blitzer announces The Wall Street Journal reporters as award winners for uncovering Trump’s Epstein connections. As Wolf reads off everything that happened—the $20B lawsuit, the reporters' personal info being leaked, getting banned from Air Force One—Trump just sits there shrugging and smiling.

Then Trump actually greets them and shakes their hands as they come up to take the stage.

[Albert Kostanian @AlbertKostanian]

الأهم في الاتفاق الإطار هو تكريس مرجعية الدولة، وإعطاء الأولوية للمفاوضات المباشرة واعتماد نهجٍ تدرّجي. قد لا يكون اتفاقًا خاليًا من الثغرات، لكنه يبقى الخيار الوحيد لاستعادة السيادة.
أمّا نقاط ضعفه، فيتحمّل الحزب ومحوره مسؤوليتها كاملة بعدما زجّا لبنان في حروب الآخرين، غير آبهين باختلال موازين القوى ولا بسلامة اللبنانيين.
استباحة إيران للقرار الوطني قادت لبنان إلى هوة عميقة، وسيحتاج اللبنانيون سنوات من العمل والمثابرة للتعافي منها.

[Ayman Mhanna @AymanMhanna]

Hussain, thank you for the generous words. I read the rest carefully.
The problem is that your reply attributes to me pressures, motives, identities, and positions I never expressed. It responds to an unwritten version of my argument.
A few factual corrections.
My family is Christian Maronite. I am from Metn, in Mount Lebanon. Like most Lebanese, I have friends across communities, including Shia. Inferring someone’s politics from what you assume their surname says about sectarian affiliation is a Lebanese habit we should leave behind.
I also did not describe the framework as “the lesser of two evils.” I described it as a step forward and a necessary path.
I support the current effort toward peace through negotiations by the Lebanese President and government. I also believe the Lebanese-Israeli track should be separated from any U.S.-Iranian, GCC-related, or other regional track.
Because peace is Lebanon’s top, unnegotiable interest.
I also remain, proudly, a human rights defender. When war crimes are committed, I denounce them, whoever the perpetrator is and whoever the victim is: Israel, Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, Russia, the RSF in Sudan, or any other actor.
Maintaining the right to pursue accountability for war crimes, environmental harm, assassinations/killings of journalists, or unlawful destruction of civilian areas does not block negotiations. Peace, law, responsibility, and recognition of civilian suffering are not mutually exclusive.
A clause limiting adverse legal action in international fora may make sense in a final peace treaty, which I look forward to, especially with reciprocal guarantees and reparations mechanisms. In an early framework, it requires caution.
Peace with Israel is in Lebanon’s interest. Unconditional alignment with whatever the Netanyahu-Ben Gvir-Smotrich government does or says is something else entirely.

[Ayman Mhanna @AymanMhanna]

The framework announced in Washington is neither a final peace agreement nor a guarantee of success. It is the beginning of a difficult test for the Lebanese state, for Hezbollah, and for the principle of separating the Lebanese-Israeli track from the U.S.-Iranian track.
For Lebanon, this framework comes after years of war, displacement, destruction, institutional collapse, and economic ruin. It also contains problematic language, especially the commitment to stop “hostile or adverse actions” in international political and legal fora, which weakens Lebanon's right to seek accountability for environmental harm, the killing of journalists, civilian destruction, or violations of international law. Peace built on impunity is, at best, fragile.
Yet the central question remains unavoidable: what is the alternative?
Hezbollah offers no credible path to liberation, sovereignty, reconstruction, or return. Its alternative is more war, more Israeli destruction, more displacement, more misery, and more subordination of Lebanon to regional calculations that do not serve the Lebanese people.
If Hezbollah is made to choose between the Lebanese state’s monopoly over weapons and the continuation of Israeli occupation, its current conduct and public statements suggests it would choose the latter, because the end of occupation through the authority of the state would also mean the end of its armed exceptionalism.
That is why this framework's importance lies asserting the principle that Lebanon’s sovereignty belongs to the Lebanese state alone. No party, no militia, no regional power has the right to decide the fate of the Lebanese people from outside the constitutional order.

[Firas Maksad @FirasMaksad]

The Iran war is over. But the US-led order in the Middle East is now in question.

In this @ForeignAffairs essay, @ianbremmer and I argue:

• Erratic & unpredictable American conduct, along with an inability to achieve a decisive victory, convinced US partners that deep dependence on Washington is a liability, not just an asset.

•Their response will be to accelerate effort to diversify away from the US, including by forming new coalitions that afford them greater agency.

• “We are no longer interested in being an American satellite state,” one senior GCC official put it bluntly.

• Middle powers like the UK, France, Turkey, India & Pakistan will be the primary beneficiaries in a more diversified Middle East.

• China, while unable & unwilling to take on the burdens of running the region, is well positioned as a predictable low-cost alternative to over reliance on the US.

• Post #Iran  war- the Middle East may just be the leading edge. From Europe’s push for defense autonomy to Asia’s growing nuclear hedging, the same diagnosis is spreading globally: betting less on the US is a strategic imperative.

Read & share the full essay at:

https://t.co/yhJFAnvUkx

[كريم صفي الدين - Karim Safieddine @safieddine00]

اذا حدا عم ببيعك "حلّ سريع" للأزمة اللبنانية الحالية، أعرف انو "الحل"، عالأغلب، رح يفاقم الأزمة.

[Karim Sadjadpour @ksadjadpour]

The Memorandum of Misunderstanding between the US and Iran:

The US believes Iran will restore the Strait of Hormuz as a secure international waterway, make significant nuclear concessions, and potentially abandon its revolutionary ideology--including its opposition to the US and Israel and support for regional proxies--in exchange for major investment from the same Gulf countries that have just been on the receiving end of thousands of Iranian missiles and drones.

The Islamic Republic of Iran believes it will continue to control the Strait of Hormuz, receive tens of billions of dollars in upfront sanctions relief and unfrozen assets, make no concessions on missiles, drones, or proxies, while potentially offering to suspend uranium enrichment for the period of time they need to reconstitute their bombed nuclear facilities.

[Emile Hokayem (@emile-hokayem.bsky.social) @emile_hokayem]

It is likely that Hezbollah will show restraint against Israel in the coming days while the US-Iran dance takes place.

Hezbollah's focus will be inward: claim victory, mobilise its base, shame its critics, pressure the president and PM, try to sabotage Lebanese-Israeli talks, demand the formation of a new gvt.

[كريم صفي الدين - Karim Safieddine @safieddine00]

المرحلة خطيرة كتير والمجاملة والخفة صار الها ثمن كبير. في آلاف الشباب من 2023 لليوم نبعتوا عالموت. الاستخفاف بالثمن مقابل هالنتيجة جريمة أخرى بحقهن.

[Emile Hokayem (@emile-hokayem.bsky.social) @emile_hokayem]

The spin battles are on in Lebanon, between Hezbollah which presents the deal as a victory because Iran emerged better than expected and its critics, who insist that Hezb has been defeated.

Of course, there is no victory for Iran or defeat of Hezbollah here. Hezb will now seek to consolidate its domestic position (including through force), leading to more friction and instability.

[Ayman Mhanna @AymanMhanna]

Quality journalism from MENA exists. It is courageous, professional, diverse, but increasingly under-resourced. https://t.co/RvS762QEr5 brings independent outlets together, sends readers back to the original publisher, and helps turn visibility into sustainability. Proud of this @SK_Eyes project, of my team, the participating outlets, and the ones joining soon.

[Ayman Mhanna @AymanMhanna]

حلمنا مؤلم. حلم البديهيات.
كم ٢١ سنة ننتظر بعد؟