Lebanese army intelligence briefly arrested a Lebanese television crew on Friday morning filming at the scene of the fatal explosion at the port of Beirut.
Journalist Edmond Sassine and cameraman Paul Bou Aoun reported on the devastation caused by Tuesday’s explosion of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate stored unhealthily in a port warehouse since 2014.
After his arrest, Sassine said on Twitter that while the army had treated him and his colleague well, “the hounds who do their homework are not the ones who are arrested.”
“They’re the top officials.”
Sassine also claimed that foreign hounds were allowed to report from the port site.
An army spokesman was unable to provide additional main points on the arrest of the LBCI crew.
A team from lebanese channel MTV also briefly stopped on the site on Wednesday.
The spokesman told Al Arabiya English that the army did not allow the hounds to enter the blast site at an “active crime scene” and prevent the evidence from being damaged. Drones are also banned from flying or filming in the area, the spokesman added.
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Lebanese Human Rights Watch researcher Aya Majzoub said the organization was tracking the arrest and imaginable restrictions on freedom of expression.
Following the explosion, the Lebanese cabinet announced a two-week state of emergency following the explosion in the capital, handing security over to the military. However, the spokesman said this would have nothing to do with press freedom.
Even with the state of emergency in place, Majzoub said, states will have to respect certain rights, adding the right to life and the prohibition of torture, as well as the needs of a fair trial.