"Many ask why the Lebanese people have not stood up to the Hezbollah-dominated system that has made their country a failing state. The answer is that hundreds of thousands of them have. In a movement little known outside the region, in 2019, citizens took to streets and squares across the country to call for change.
The two outspoken women featured in today’s video describe the hope that drove what became known as the October 17 Revolution. They raised their voices and waved Lebanon’s flag in an atmosphere of heady idealism. Civilians came together across barriers of ethnicity and sect, and women gained prominence as protest leaders, demanding good governance and economic reform.
Hezbollah was not the primary target of their campaign, but it was Hezbollah enforcers who brutally attacked demonstrators while Lebanese police stood on the sidelines. Outside the country, foreign powers who said they were committed to a better future in Lebanon, made no attempt to assist the protesters. Hezbollah swiftly put a violent end to the dream.
Over the past year, the Center for Peace Communications, a New York nonprofit, interviewed Shi’ite opponents of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Sunni victims of Hezbollah in Syria, each of whom in their own way has fought back against the group’s depredations. At great personal risk, they let us record and film them bearing witness to the reality Hezbollah hides. To obscure the identity of these brave people, we have illustrated their stories with striking animation. The voices you hear, however, are theirs.
The result is Hezbollah’s Hostages, a Center for Peace Communications production which The Free Press presents exclusively to English-language audiences on successive Mondays."
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