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Police Beat Up Anew Anti-Regime Students in Beirut
Clashes
Beirut, Updated 12 Mar
04, 19:30
Riot
police clubbed down hundreds of Aounist students protesting Syrian control
of Lebanon Friday in a second day of clashes that heightened a
confrontation between far-right opposition groups and President Lahoud's
regime.
The
AFP said 7 arrests were made and 4 students suffered injuries from
repeated baton charges that came two days after a police crackdown on
another student demonstration protesting the government failure to provide
jobs for university graduates.
Hundreds
of FPM students converged on downtown Beirut, where army jeeps and riot
police had lined the streets. The march quickly degenerated into a clash
between the protestors and the police force, which managed to maneuver the
crowds into the Saifi neighborhood and surround them there. Several Beirut
television students ran footage showing club-wielding riot police chasing
students through the streets of downtown and severely beating two of them.
The Agence France Press said 4 students were wounded and seven arrested.
President
Lahoud had vowed 'no tolerance' toward law-breaking student disorders on
the eve of demonstrations scheduled by Gen. Aoun's FPM to mark the 15th
anniversary of his 1989-1990 "liberation war" to drive the
Syrian army out of Lebanon.
Lahoud
had called on Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir Thursday reportedly to avert an
outburst by the Maronite church against the regime's highhandedness in
suppressing street demonstrations by students of right-wing opposition
groupings.
The
President's move came a day after riot police backed by army troops and
fire-engine water hoses smothered an attempt by students to break out from
the campus of Saint Joseph University (USJ) in Ashrafiyeh to stage a
street march against the regime.
Lahoud
said after the 25-minute tête-à-tête with Cardinal Sfeir he would not
allow disorders at a time the United States is hurling threats against
Lebanon and Syria for their steadfast stance in support of Arab causes.
Bkirki
made no comment after the Sfeir-Lahoud closed doors meeting, but local
media reports quoted the Patriarch as telling the president "we are
with Syria on the regional level, but we don't compromise on Lebanon's
sovereignty."
As
for Aoun, he described the USJ crackdown as evidence that Lebanon's
current regime has turned into a ruthless dictatorship under Syria's wing.
He said students of his Free Patriotic Movement were determined to "exercise
their constitutional right to demonstrate no matter what."
Aoun
spoke in Rome Thursday after his first-ever meeting with Pope John-Paul II
in the Vatican on Wednesday. "His Holiness has lately been asking his
Lebanese visitors about me and why I don't return to Lebanon," Aoun
said.
"So
I visited His Holiness to express the gratitude of all the Lebanese for
all he has been doing for Lebanon," Aoun added.
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