"Several weeks after a television report purported to expose the dangers posed by foreign workers in Burj Hammoud, details have surfaced of a new sense of fear among migrant workers in the area. The local television station aired its report, entitled “Burj Hammoud … neighborhoods in danger,” Oct. 16. It quoted locals complaining that foreign workers had turned the neighborhood into a hub of prostitution and crime.
The report has since been criticized by activist groups, who warned that the report played on racist stereotypes. A representative of one of these groups, Ali Fakhry of the Anti-Racism Movement, told The Daily Star “the report was made from an extremely racist point of view … that intended to show that migrants are criminals, working as sex workers dealing with drugs, killing people.”
But the report itself is not Fakhry’s main concern – it’s the aftermath. “We blame the report for triggering racism,” he explains, “and for giving people the right to go and harass and beat these migrants.”
He says that in the days following the report’s airing, “we had Lebanese people in Burj Hammoud beating migrants, harassing them, pushing them in the streets under the eyes of the police … at the same time we saw an increasing number of police and security forces.
“We are aware that the Lebanese security forces have the full right of arresting undocumented workers,” Fakhry adds. “What we are against is harassing people, we are against humiliating people, we are against people fearing walking on the street.”" (thanks Laure)
