PO BAG 1: Lebanon

21 February 2017

Le Pen refuses headscarf, nixes talks with Lebanon cleric

An aide of Lebanon's Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdel-Latif Derian, right, holds a head scarf as he tries to convince French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, center, to wear it during her meeting with the Mufti but she refused, at Dar al-Fatwa the headquarters of the Sunni Mufti, in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2017. Le Pen refused to go into a meeting with Lebanon's Grand mufti after his aides asked her to wear a head scarf. Le Pen said she met in the past with the Grand mufti of Egypt's Al-Azhar, one of the world's top Sunni clerics, without wearing a veil. Once she was told it is different here, Le Pen walked toward her car and left.

France's far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen refused to don a headscarf for a meeting with Lebanon's top Sunni Muslim cleric on Tuesday and walked away from the scheduled appointment after a brief squabble at the entrance.

The debacle topped Le Pen's three-day visit to Lebanon, where she held her first campaign meeting with a head of state. It drew the focus to her strong support for secularism and a proposal in her presidential platform that promotes banishing headscarves and other obvious religious symbols in all public spaces.

2 January 2015

Lebanon's domestic workers move to protect rights

In this Sunday, April 28, 2013 file photo, migrant domestic workers dance during a march demanding the same basic labor rights as that of the Lebanese workers in Beirut, Lebanon. Migrant domestic workers in Lebanon are set to protect their rights under a trade union - the first such syndicate in the Arab world where more than 2.4 million foreign domestic workers labor under often harsh conditions. The Labor Ministry said Monday, Dec. 29, 2014, that they received a proposal from the National Federation of Labor Unions to form the syndicate in Lebanon. Migrant workers in Lebanon - mostly from Ethiopia, Sri Lanka and the Philippines - have fallen victim to unpaid wages, forced labor and even physical and sexual abuse.

Migrant domestic workers in Lebanon are set to protect their rights under a trade union — the first such syndicate in the Arab world where more than 2.4 million foreign domestic workers labor under often harsh conditions.

The Labor Ministry said Monday they received a proposal from the National Federation of Labor Unions to form the syndicate in Lebanon. Migrant workers in Lebanon — mostly from Ethiopia, Sri Lanka and the Philippines — have fallen victim to unpaid wages, forced labor and even physical and sexual abuse.