Lebanon's Parliament Set To Vote For A President
Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri will call for a session to elect a new president on September 29, despite no political consensus on a candidate and dim chances of a successful vote.
Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri will call for a session to elect a new president on September 29, despite no political consensus on a candidate and dim chances of a successful vote.
President Michel Aoun's six-year term ends on October 31, and politicians have voiced concern about no successor being found - warning of even greater institutional deadlock given that Lebanon has also been without a fully functioning government since May.
The session will be held at 11 a.m. on Thursday, the state-run National News Agency reported.
The votes of two-thirds of lawmakers in the 128-member legislature are required for a candidate to be successful in the first round of voting, after which a simple majority suffices.
Aoun came to power after a 29-month presidential vacuum in which parliament was unable to agree on electing a president.
The stalemate ended with a series of deals that secured victory for Aoun and his powerful Iran-backed ally Hezbollah, which still holds a lot of power within the sectarian division in Lebanon.
Aoun is limited to one term, and major political parties have not announced any agreement on his successor, although many blame the militant group and Iran for the country's problems.
Lebanon has been in economic turmoil since 2019, when its banking system and the government went bankrupt, and citizens lost their foreign currency deposits. The national currency has lost most of its value and many middle-class people struggle for a living.
The association issued a statement on Sunday saying that the Iranian-American community will no longer be silent in the face of appeasement of and association with “this evil regime.”
The Board of Directors and Board of Trustee's of the Iranian-American Medical Association (IAMA) said in its statement that Dr. Shervin Mortazavi’s meeting with Raisi – which was revealed following a photo of the meeting – was not scheduled by the association, adding that the IAMA was completely unaware of such action.
“Dr. Mortazavi has publicly stated this was a private engagement that had nothing to do with his role at IAMA,” the statement read.
Strongly condemning the meeting, IAMA said that “Regardless of the reason, this was not acceptable by the Board members, hence accordingly and unanimously the Board asked him (Mortazavi) to resign immediately.”
It added that the IAMA has also asked him “to distance himself completely from our organization, which during its 30 years history has solely been a scientific, humanitarian, non-political, non-religious, and non-profit organization.”
“We, as IAMA members, like other Iranians all over the world, strongly condemn what has happened to Masa Amini, a young innocent girl as a distinct violation of human rights,” it said, referring to the death of the 22-year-old Kurdish girl whose death in custody of hijab police has triggered nationwide unrest in Iran.
The eyewitness who did not want to be identified because of her safety in Iran had also been arrested for “improper hijab” and saw Mahsa Amini in the police station before she collapsed and taken to hospital.
The 22-year-old whose death sparked the largest antigovernment protests in Iran, was complaining of pain in her head. When the eyewitness asked her the reason, she told her that police officers had hit her on the head.
The eyewitness told Iran International that she heard from others in the police station that Mahsa Amini had hesitated to step out of the police van that brought her to the station. At that point a ranking police officer had hit her on the head and forced her out of the van.
In the police station waiting room, Mahsa repeatedly asked female agents about why she was arrested as her attire seemed proper. They aggressively dismissed her questions and complaints. At one point she collapsed to the ground and other women began screaming for medical help. The female guards dismissed her unconsciousness saying that she was pretending to be ill to get out of jail.
Then, after 30 minutes an unexperienced medic showed up, but Mahsa’s face began to turn white, and she seemed to enter a coma.
Female detainees began to scream and after a while another medic showed up who also seemed unexperienced, and finally after an hour a doctor showed up who tried to resuscitate her and after another 30 minutes an ambulance arrived to take her to hospital. In total, about two hours elapsed before Mahsa was taken to hospital, where she died three days later, while still in coma, on September 16.
The eyewitness said that those present asked guards many times to inform Mahsa’s brother, who was waiting outside the police station, about her condition, but the guards refused and acted aggressively toward the other detainees.
According to her, if police officers had not acted with indifference and Mahsa had been taken to hospital immediately, she would not enter a coma.
Doctors told Iran International earlier that all medical signs pointed to severe blows to Mahsa's head that fractured her skull, leading to a coma, and that they could not do anything to save her.
After Mahsa passed away, people in her hometown, Saqqez, and some other cities nearby, as well as around her hospital in Tehran began protests. The demonstrations spread to other cities and towns around Saqqez in western Iran and by September 18 protests spread to the capital, Tehran and other urban areas around the country.
At least 54 protesters were reported killed until September 24, but no one has the final toll, as the government rarely announces real figures.
