Those responsible for attacks on the press must be held accountable

Journalists were among the most active in documenting the Lebanese protests, according to our Lebanon Protests open-data platform. This role has put members of the press at risk, with attacks on media spiking in mid-January—the SKeyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedom identified over 20 violations against media between January 14 – 20, raising the total number of violations to 75 since the protests began on October 17, 2019. This popular uprising is revolutionary because it exceeded the prevalent ceiling of freedom of expression and broke through the barrier of fear over prosecution—almost as if the streets wanted to destroy the image of politicians because they could not remove them from power. Criticism has become a daily discourse for protesters. One achievement has been how traditional media has opened up to activists and protestors—criticism of political elites that would have been censored by default prior to the protests now regularly