Time to uncover Lebanon’s corruption

How did you become a journalist?

Hala Nasreddine: I was always drawn to journalism. I was very interested in politics at a young age, and I did a lot of readings. This is why I studied both journalism and political science, as they are closely intertwined in our part of the region.

I initially started working at an NGO. We were working on capacity-building and preventing violent extremism projects. The country, and the region as a matter of fact, faced a wave of extremism with groups like Al-Qaeda, ISIS and so on, and we were trying to prevent young people from deviating into violent extremism. When the Lebanese uprising started in October 2019, I was working on a project on Sunni-Shia dialogue in Lebanon, but I felt that this is not where I should be at this specific time. I felt like I’m at the wrong place and that the conflict is not really sectarian, it’s not Sunni against Shia. Instead, the conflict is the Lebanese disenfranchised people against the corrupt political elite. The conflict is about us; the people, the citizens, all together fighting a very corrupt political cartel that is exhausting our resources. So, I thought to myself, I am not in the right place.

I needed to go back to journalism to do the work that I felt is needed to be done. I resigned from the NGO and went back to journalism. Full focus. I left the job without having an alternative and started working as a freelance journalist. Then, I became an Editorial fellow at the Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ), and then about nine months ago, I joined the Beirut-based Daraj media.

How do you remember the day when the blast hit?

Hala Nasreddine: I was outside of Beirut, but I still felt the explosion at my house which is around 45 kilometers southeast of Beirut. It was horrifying. Luckily, I didn’t personally know any of the people who died, but several people I know were affected.

For me, it was the end of the world. I felt like I couldn’t write. I couldn’t think properly. I couldn’t even send voice messages. I was finding it difficult to even find words, to talk in full sentences. I was reviewing something I had written two days before the blast, and I was thinking: Did I really write this. They were my words, I was told, but I couldn’t recognize them. Because of the trauma I had short term memory loss. I talked to a doctor about it, and he told me to give it another week. Maybe it would go away, and it fortunately did.

How did you cover the blast as a journalist?

Hala Nasreddine: After the blast, the first thing we did was to cover the blast and explain to people what was happening.

When things settled down a bit, my full focus became to expose corruption and hold people accountable. It felt like corruption really exploded on that day. It got to a point where corruption was not just about money. We lost major areas of Beirut on that day, and people lost their lives because of corruption. As journalists, we felt like we needed to uncover everything that was going on. It became our task to fight corruption in our country.

I started looking at the people at the port of Beirut trying to figure out who is responsible for this.

Our system in Lebanon is very sophisticated with the political sector, the business sector and the religious sector all intertwining. You need to deconstruct the story to know who’s responsible for what. Businesses are associated with politicians, there are geographical divisions and so on.

We were trying to find out why this ammonium nitrate ended up in the port of Beirut. Following previous investigations, we started looking into few Syrian businessman, among which is the prominent George Haswani and his son. We started asking questions: How were they related to the Assad regime, how are they connected to the nitrate that exploded in the port of Beirut and how were they using the ammonium nitrate in Syria?

We worked with other investigative journalists in Syria. We did a detailed profile about him. We talked to a legal expert in international law as the Lebanese judge back then did not move further with the case, so we were questioning how we as Lebanese can take this further and bring the case to justice.

What role has investigative journalism been playing in Lebanon since the blast?

Hala Nasreddine: After the blast we felt that now is really the time for investigative journalism, to document and highlight all the corruption and wrongdoings, so that one day there will be accountability and justice.

The anger became the motive that kept us going. This anger helped shape journalism. Before this moment, you did not have a lot of investigative journalism. But after the explosion, the reason for doing investigative journalism became so clear to everyone.

Right now, you see that even traditional media outlets are competing with independent media outlets on doing investigative stories, which I think is good. Even though these media have their own political agendas, it’s about uncovering everything, so in that sense, we should let them fight and unveil all corruption.

I think that people in Lebanon deserve to live better lives. A lot of people have lost hope saying that nothing will change. But as journalists we can’t say this. We can’t sit down and watch while everything is falling apart. No, we have to try. When you pinpoint things to people, you are directing people and saying: this is where corruption is happening. This is where we need to be looking.

We’re trying to build the foundation for a better future despite the very unusual circumstances.

We will eventually hit rock bottom in the country, so, even if it will take us years to recover, we will try to build a future where we can hold those in power accountable. This is what drives us.