A Lebanese military court has sentenced journalist Maria Maalouf, in absentia, to 15 years in prison and stripped her of her civil rights.
The charge is not assassination, not corruption, not the financial collapse that gutted the country. It is an interview.
Maalouf, a longtime Hezbollah critic now living in exile in the United States, appeared on Israeli television and said that Hezbollah and Iran have taken Lebanon hostage. For saying it, she gets 15 years.
Days earlier, that same military justice handed identical 15-year sentences, in absentia, to two more Lebanese living abroad: Ahmad Yassine, a Paris-based professor with a large YouTube following, and Joumana Gebara (NEWSRAEL contributor).