Local and international human rights organizations have criticized the authorities in Lebanon for their excessive use of violence against peaceful demonstrators, some of which reported the effects of beatings and ill-treatment on the bodies of those arrested and subsequently released.
Amnesty International said that security forces used excessive force to disperse peaceful demonstrators in downtown Beirut, including firing large amounts of tear gas at the crowds, chasing street protesters and alleys at gunpoint and beating them.
The director of research for the Middle East, Lynn Maalouf, called on the authorities to respect the rights of peaceful protesters to freedom of assembly, to investigate the excessive use of tear gas by security forces and to assault demonstrators with weapons and beatings.
Amnesty stressed that some of the side-effects of violence do not justify the excessive use of tear gas to disperse the entire peaceful protest. Nothing justifies the attack on protesters.
Human Rights Watch said security forces used excessive and unnecessary force against demonstrators in central Beirut on October 18, including the use of tear gas in central Beirut on thousands of peaceful protesters, including children.
The army also evacuated areas with excessive force at times, while riot police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at fleeing protesters.
The anti-government demonstrations, which began on the evening of 17 of this month, broke out as a result of the government's announcement of new taxes, including a tax on the use of the application "WhatsApp" for correspondence, which was amended after hours because of public outrage. But protests across the country have turned into anger against the entire political system, which they see as the cause of the worsening economic situation.
Local human rights groups have reported that those arrested in connection with the protests - which have been going on for three days in the capital Beirut - have been subjected to abuse and excessive violence by security forces in the demonstration yards.
The legal calendar (non-governmental and concerned with human rights news) through its Facebook page that it monitored - in cooperation with the Lebanese Center for Human Rights and a group of lawyers and lawyers - the arrest of 132 people during the demonstrations, including six minors.
According to the "Legal Notepad", the security forces released most of the detainees later, but it was found that there were traces of beatings and ill-treatment on the bodies of many of those released, and it is likely that they are the result of ill-treatment, beatings and violence in the demonstration yards, not in the interrogation rooms.