The latest proposals will restrict freedoms.
Fourteen Lebanese and international human rights organizations, including the “Silat Wassel Platform,” today urged the Lebanese Parliament to ensure that the draft media law it is considering guarantees the right to freedom of expression.
This includes decriminalizing slander, libel, defamation, and criticism of public officials. It also calls for prohibiting pretrial detention for offenses related to freedom of expression and removing stringent restrictions on establishing media outlets.
The parliamentary Administration and Justice Committee is scheduled to resume its discussion of the bill on September 16, 2025.
The organizations stated that provisions for slander and defamation in the Lebanese Penal Code have been repeatedly used to target and silence government critics, activists, and journalists. They noted that security agencies have frequently summoned journalists over their work.
The organizations stressed that the Parliament must ensure these practices are ended by passing a media law that fully aligns with international human rights standards, including those related to the right to freedom of expression and media freedom.
Lebanon’s parliament began discussing a new media law in 2010 after a former parliament member, Ghassan Moukheiber, and Maharat Foundation, a Beirut-based nongovernmental organization specializing in media and freedom of expression issues, submitted a proposal to amend Lebanon’s outdated Publications Law. In January 2023, parliament established a subcommittee to study and amend the draft media law, a final version of which was submitted to the Administration and Justice Committee on May 27, 2025.
The draft law submitted to the committee in May 2025 included significant advancements in protecting the right to freedom of expression in Lebanon, including abolishing pretrial detention and prison sentences for all speech-related violations. It also repealed criminal defamation and insult provisions from Lebanon’s penal code and military judiciary law.
Lebanon’s Administration and Justice Committee began discussing the latest media law bill on July 29 and has held three meetings on the topic.
According to Article 34 of the Parliament’s internal regulations, the committee’s discussions are confidential unless the committee decides otherwise.
The organizations stated that the committee should make its discussions public to ensure the transparency of parliamentary debates and facilitate effective citizen participation, especially given the law’s potential to respect or restrict fundamental human rights, such as the right to freedom of expression.
On August 31, members of Parliament received proposed amendments to the text of the bill. The title of the document containing the amendments indicates that the Lebanese Minister of Information proposed them; however, the minister has denied this.
The organizations reviewed the proposed amendments. They include the reinstatement of pretrial detention, including cases where the crime is accompanied by “aggravating circumstances, such as exposing the dignity or private life of individuals.”
According to the provided text, the use of pretrial detention in Lebanon is only permitted for crimes punishable by more than one year in prison. It is explicitly prohibited for press-related offenses under the current publications laws in Lebanon.
The organizations stated that the approval of such an amendment would represent a significant step backward in protecting the right to freedom of expression and media freedom in Lebanon.
The proposed amendments do not define what “exposing the dignity or private life of individuals” means.
Organizations argue that vague laws, which leave people uncertain about what speech might violate the law, have a chilling effect on free expression.
This can lead to self-censorship out of fear of being summoned for questioning, placed in pretrial detention, or ultimately prosecuted. Furthermore, loosely worded provisions make the law susceptible to misuse by authorities to silence peaceful dissent.
The proposed amendments would impose further unlawful restrictions on media outlets facing lawsuits by prohibiting them from “covering the subject of the dispute for the entire duration of the proceedings.”
Such a blanket legislative ban would constitute a severe violation of the right to freedom of expression. Lebanese and international human rights organizations have long documented the repeated use of defamation laws by Lebanese authorities to silence media outlets, journalists, activists, and other critics of government policies and corruption.
The proposed amendments would require licensed television stations to submit regular reports to the Ministry of Information and the National Council for Audiovisual Media, including detailed information about their broadcasting schedules.
Furthermore, the amendments would impose a system of prior licensing on electronic media, replacing the current notification system. Unless these licensing conditions are carefully crafted, there are concerns they could lead to arbitrary decisions on who can establish and operate media outlets, potentially facilitating violations of the right to freedom of expression and media freedom.
International human rights standards stipulate that the fees or conditions for licensing media outlets to allocate broadcast frequencies must not be burdensome. The criteria for applying these fees and conditions should be reasonable, objective, clear, transparent, and non-discriminatory.
The organizations stated that the Lebanese Parliament should pass a media law that includes safeguards to protect the rights that Lebanese human rights and media organizations have long fought for.
They added that Parliament must immediately lift the confidentiality surrounding discussions of the media law bill and reject proposals that would further restrict the right to freedom of expression and media freedom, including pretrial detention and articles that criminalize slander, libel, and defamation.
The signatory organizations are:
- The Lebanese Journalists Union
- The Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections (LADE)
- Smex
- Silat Wassel
- The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ)
- The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
- Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
- The Lebanese Center for Human Rights (CLDH)
- The Cedar Center for Legal Studies (CCLS)
- Legal Agenda
- Amnesty International
- Samir Kassir Foundation
- Maharat Foundation
- Human Rights Watch
