Middle East Peace and Security Initiative Nonresident Senior Fellow Nicholas Blanford writes for the Christian Science Monitor on the escalating anti-government tensionsin Lebanon as protestors stormed the country’s environment ministry on Tuesday:
Antigovernment campaigners on Tuesday stormed Lebanon’s environment ministry, escalating a confrontation that began with a crisis over garbage collection and spinning it into a broader challenge to Lebanon’s sectarian system and its powerful political elite.
“We will stay here until our demands are met,” Imad Bazzi, one of the leaders of the Tolaet Rihatcom, or “You Stink” campaign, told Lebanon’s LBC International television station from the environment ministry.