(Beirut) – Lebanon’s parliament should amend the recently-adopted media law to fully remove all provisions in Lebanese law that restrict the right to free expression, Human Rights Watch said today. Parliament passed the law on August 11, 2026, but a new draft law introduced by 10 members of parliament on October 5 offers amendments to the law that would resolve its key problematic provisions.
“Given the history of public officials and powerful individuals abusing Lebanon’s laws to clamp down on journalists, activists, and artists, parliament should act to prevent further abuse,” said Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch. “No one should face abusive retaliation for peacefully expressing their views, and parliament has a chance to end these abuses right here and now.”
The media law, which parliament adopted after 16 years of deliberation, includes significant improvements. Some of the key advances include ending pretrial detention for free expression-related crimes committed online or through media-related means. The law establishes individuals’ right to create online media platforms or issue publications without prior state authorization and limits the military court’s jurisdiction over expression-related crimes committed online or through media-related means. It also decriminalizes defamation and insult in certain cases, transferring them to civil court jurisdiction.
The law also includes provisions that would promote media independence, including by prohibiting undue interference in journalists’ work, promoting media workers’ rights to unionize, protecting sources’ anonymity, and limiting the ability of security services to search and seize journalists’ electronic equipment and documents.
The adopted media law, however, includes a provision, article 104(b), which criminalizes the “intentional fabrication of falsehoods and dissemination of false and harmful news” providing for a sentence of up to three years in prison. For decades, Lebanese journalists, artists, media organizations, and civil society groups have repeatedly faced lawsuits based on criminal defamation charges and other vague legal provisions in retaliation for their work.
This provision, which includes vague and undefined terms such as “harmful news,” risks enabling continued threats of criminal proceedings against journalists as well as such lawsuits.
While the adopted media law decriminalizes defamation and insult in some cases, provisions found in Lebanon’s Penal Code, which the law does not mention, annul, or make inapplicable, would continue to criminalize libel, slander, and insult directed against a foreign state or its president, representatives, army, flag, or emblems.
Such provisions also criminalize defamation against Lebanon’s president, state institutions, and army, among others, imposing prison sentences of up to two years. Provisions of the Lebanon Military Justice Code, which also remain in effect, include the criminalization of “publicly disparaging the flag or the army or infringing upon its dignity, reputation or morale,” imposing a prison sentence of up to three years.
The amendments sought in the October 5 draft law would annul article 104(b) of the media law and make these articles, in both Lebanon’s Penal Code and Military Justice Code, inapplicable to cases covered by the media law, including for both media-related or online forms of expression.
The amendments would also limit security forces’ ability to interrogate and investigate media professionals for expression-related crimes, limiting these powers solely to the public prosecution’s jurisdiction. Human Rights Watch has repeatedly documented violations, including, physical and psychological interrogation tactics and bias by Lebanese security agencies in enforcing criminal defamation laws against journalists and activists.
Since Lebanon’s media law only applies to acts of media-related and online forms of expression, Lebanon’s parliament should fully repeal all provisions, including in Lebanon’s Penal Code and Military Justice Code, related to criminal defamation or insult, Human Rights Watch said. It should make any such cases, including offline and non-media related expression, subject to civil court jurisdiction, in accordance with international human rights standards.
“For years Lebanese civil society has fought for increased protections to the right to freedom of expression and the press,” Kaiss said. “Passing the proposed amendments to the media law would be a breakthrough.”