Al-Rahi Urges Protesters to be Peaceful after Meeting Aoun

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi held talks Friday in Baabda with President Michel Aoun, in the wake of a night of raging protests that engulfed Lebanon over a dramatic rise in the dollar exchange rate on the black market.

“Neither through vandalization nor though burning tires we would get anything. We support a civilized revolution and it is unacceptable to tarnish Lebanon’s cultural and civilized face,” al-Rahi said after the meeting.

“We respect the ruling authorities’ decisions and they must shoulder their responsibility towards the people,” the patriarch added.

“We feel people’s pain and we went through bigger problems in the past, and my words are not meant to anesthetize (the people) but are rather responsible words,” he went on to say.

Defending President Aoun, al-Rahi added: “President Aoun was the first who said ‘all of them means all of them’ and I call for pinpointing responsibilities instead of blaming them on one person.”