Independence Movement President Michel Moawad stressed that general amnesty should be limited to prisoners who had been wronged, as this respects the law and safeguards civil peace.

In a conversation aired during MTV’s news broadcast, Moawad commented on his heated exchange with MP Jihad Al-Samad during the joint committee’s negotiation of the first article of the proposed law. He told MTV: “The argument with MP Samad was brief and marginal, but MP Samad should understand that he cannot intimidate us by hurling insults, screaming, and patriotic posturing. We will continue to defend our convictions, whatever the cost, whether anyone likes it or not.

We were discussing the amnesty law, which, when it was previously proposed, created a deep national schism and drove the Lebanese people to take to the streets to prevent deputies from arriving at the session and approving the law because its deal-making rationale was evident in its initial form, which stipulated that those responsible for killing the army, stealing state funds, and drug traffickers would be exempt from imprisonment. I boycotted the session at the time and rejected the law with all the means available to me during the second phase.

Moawad pointed out that “the objective was to reach a national consensus on this issue based on two things. The first is the inclusion of those who had been wrong as a result of the conditions of occupation, economic conditions, or judicial errors, as is the case regarding the Islamist detainees. He added: “We set out from our conviction that there are specific injustices and that we, as legislators, have to deal with them, but on the basis of respect for the law and the need to preserve civil peace. That is, the amnesty should be limited to those who had been wronged, and we should not, in the end, under the slogan of lifting injustice, allow those who had trafficked drugs, stolen public money, or killed soldiers to be released.