By Yasmine Salamah---

An exhibition, shedding light on the atrocities and the violation of basic human rights during last AugustÕs political protests in Lebanon, was held and organized by the Human Rights Club (HRC) at AUB. The exhibition stand, which included shocking pictures of violent acts perpetrated against protesters, was set up and active all of last week facing West Hall. On August 5, Òpatriotic flyersÓ, pertaining to political issues in Lebanon, were circulated in Lebanon. On August 7, up to 200 people, among which were students, engineers, and lawyers; were arrested for political protesting. ÒI was taken too,Ó says Mario Chamoun, member of the club and in charge of organizing the exhibition, ÒI was sentenced to two weeks because I was protesting against the Syrian presence in Lebanon and because I belonged to the free patriotic movement.Ó As a result of these unjustified and violent arrests, protests objecting to the oppression of a civilianÕs most basic human right, the freedom of expression and belief, took place on August 9. What set aside this protest from other protests was the presence of security and intelligence agents who disguised themselves as civilians and hid among the protesters. Once the protests started, these disguised men would single out a protestor, gang up on them and brutally beat them up. Pictures have shown a single protestor being physically and savagely attacked by up to eight secret government agents. Students and onlookers had either a positive and supportive reaction to the exhibition or one of sympathy, shock and sadness. ÒWe are not used to this kind of behavior. One would assume that a democratic and modern country would know better than to attack non violent protesters. These horrific acts have disgusted people and put Lebanon in a negative lime light,Ó stated Chamoun. He continued to say that Òas the HRC, we donÕt care about the political reasons that are behind the demonstrations. We only care about the freedom of expression and human rights.Ó Along these lines, callers for freedom of expression have established a web-site carrying the address www.justicesearch.com..