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Last update - 05:47 13/10/2008
Lebanon bans political posters in bid to defuse sectarian tension
By The Associated Press
Tags: Lebanon, sectarian violence 

In polarized Lebanon, a poster depicting the leader of one of the country's rival political factions can spark a fight - or even a gunbattle. So shopkeepers on Beirut's al-Maamoun Street are breathing a little easier now that a poster disarmament has been declared.

Most of the posters once plastered on Beirut's walls and lampposts have come down by agreement between the main factions of Shiite and Sunni Muslims - part of a broader attempt to ease nearly three years of sectarian and political tensions that almost dragged the country back into civil war.

The move is giving a new look to a city where political posters and banners once were far more numerous than advertising billboards. It's not just symbolic, either. Posters have sparked battles with sticks and stones - or more lethal weapons.
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In the mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhood of Basta, several people were injured in fights along al-Maamoun Street earlier this year when a portrait of slain former Sunni Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and his son Saad was torn down. And last month, two people died in a gunfight between rival Christian groups over the hanging of a political banner in a village in north Lebanon.

"What a relief," Assad Shami, an 80-year-old Shiite barber in Basta, said of the disappearing posters.

"It is a positive step that defuses tensions and eliminates one of the causes of sectarian fights," said Mohammed Halawani, a 55-year-old Sunni grocer in the same area.

The Muslim factions took down their posters simultaneously around Beirut at the start of the month, and political graffiti was cleaned off walls. There are negotiations to do the same in the city's suburbs - including on the highway leading to the airport - and other parts of the country.

Lebanese have long dotted their cities with portraits of political leaders or martyrs killed in battles to mark territory or put down rivals. So posters of the top men in the main political factions - like the Sunni Hariris and Sheik Hassan Nasrallah of the Shiite movement Hezbollah - were ubiquitous.

But the portraits took on greater weight in the poisoned atmosphere of Lebanon since 2005, when the country has been torn in a power struggle between pro- and anti-Syrian politicians - the former largely Sunni and the latter led by Hezbollah. Since the factions are mostly based on religious sects, the posters could be seen as claiming power for one sect over another.

For example, one poster now gone showed Nasrallah and Shiite Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri over a Quranic verse reading, Prepare for them with as much might as you can. The verse was intended to rally Muslims against foes in the early days of Islam, but some Sunnis saw it as calling for a battle against them.

Many portraits of the Hariris carried the slogan, Lebanon First, a dig at Hezbollah's ties to Syria and Iran. And Pictures of the Saudi King Abdullah - a Hariri ally - appeared in Sunni areas to counter portraits of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his predecessor, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in mostly Shiite districts.

The attempts at reconciliation come after the political crisis hit its lowest point in May. The Western-backed, anti-Syrian government tried to rein in Hezbollah, which responded by unleashing its gunmen. Shiite-Sunni gunbattles killed 81 people.

To avert outright civil war, the factions agreed to create a national unity government, and embraced poster disarmament. Not all the posters have gone and some in the Christian areas were in the process of being dismantled this week - but for perhaps the first time in decades, Beirut's streets are not a jungle of divisive posters and banners

During the 1975-90 civil war, portraits around the city included those of the late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel-Nasser, put up by pan-Arab groups; then-Syrian President Hafez Assad, erected by his country's intelligence agents that watched over most Beirut neighborhoods; and PLO leader Yasser Arafat, sponsored by Palestinian groups.

These days, pro-unity slogans are in fashion along flashpoint al-Maamoun Street. No to strife among Muslims and Yes to Muslim unity reads a large poster that replaced a portrait of the Hariris.

Shopkeeper Jamal Mekkawi remains skeptical that peace can grow from poster removal. He said it should be followed by a reconciliation meeting between Sunnis and Shiites - something that's still being negotiated.

With parliamentary elections just months away, no one expects the portraits to stay down for long. And political loyalties still are advertised inside homes and shops - a picture of Nasrallah hangs in Assad Shami's barber shop on al-Maamoun Street.

"The key is to keep those loyalties from spilling into street violence," said Kamal Khashab, a 70-year-old Shiite grocer.

"Faith is in the heart, not in street banners," he said
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