Earlier today, Zeid Hamdan was arrested in Beirut, Lebanon, on the charge of "defaming the president" for a song and video he wrote and produced about "General Suleiman," the current president of Lebanon. The arrest came after three weeks of investigation by General Security and approximately two years after the song had first been released. A protest was planned tomorrow at 1pm in Beirut outside the Palace of Justice, where Zeid was being detained. However, confirmed reports indicate that Zeid was recently released. There is yet no indication of whether the charges have been dropped or not.
As Kinda Hassan, one of the people mobilizing against Zeid`s arrest, put it in one of several posts about the topic:
It`s nice to see that in the country of "freedom of expression," during a time of revolution throughout the Arab world, in the time of demonstrations against the Lebanese system, and in a country where everyday you see politicians on television insult each other--or where television and theater shows make loads of money off of mocking every single politician in the country--the one who is arrested is a citizen who dares to say to his president, "go home" because he, this miracle man, ironically, is not sending home all the militia men, all the corrupted politicians, all the weapons dealers, all the trouble makers, all the foreign intelligence agents . . .
Music Video of Song by Zeid Hamdan