News and Events

My Nationality is A Right for Me and My Family Campaign staged a sit-in yesterday in front of the ministry of education in Beirut to protest last July’s directive by education minister Abu Saab confining registration of High school students to Lebanese citizens only and demanded an equal treatment of the children of Lebanese women with Lebanese students.

In the previous editorial, we discussed the current toing and froing regarding the electoral system (whether to adopt the proportional or the majority system). We will now address the issue of electoral circumscriptions, another key aspect of the current political debate.

CRTD.A organized the third part of a workshop series on “Leading to a Culture of Democracy at its premises.  The workshop focused on “strengthening democratic institutions” and included a number of leaders of the Nationality Campaigns.

Contrary to what some women advocate groups hoped for, a comparison conducted by CRTD,A on the results of the 2010 and 2016 municipal elections in terms of women’s representation, has shown no significant change to this effect. This conclusion comes despite numerous initiatives launched by civil and women organizations as well as repeated calls by various political circles to support the participation of women in public affairs.

The current Parliament has been discussing, in vain, the reform of the electoral law for the past four years, amidst repeated demands for the adoption of the proportional electoral system to replace the current majority system. In this process opposing political groups continue to quarrel over the matter, each camp trying to tailor the new legislation according to its own interests, and so as to enable it to control the new parliament.

CRTDA organized a training workshop entitled “Culture of Democracy” in its third part aiming for empowering democratic organizations, in its training center in the Museum area using the “Leading to democracy: Women in transitional societies” manual by the Women’s Learning Partnership for Rights, Development, and Peace.
Leaders from the steering committee of the Nationality campaign participated in the training and worked over two days, October 19 and 20 2016, to develop their abilities through exercises and extensive trainings to acquire skills starting from the following goals:

CRTD.A organized on June 2 and 3 the second part of its workshop entitled “Leading to a Culture of Democracy”. The event was held at the WLP premises and targeted women leaders and members in the Nationality Campaign Steering Committee. During this time, participants built their capacities through exercises focusing on prevailing political, social and economic cultures, democratic participation, women’s participation in politics, democratic dialogue and how to uphold rights and common interests.

With the imminent approach of local municipal elections, tensions between political forces are high, as they maneuver for domination of local councils. These heightened tensions are taking place against the background of the failure of the current government in addressing key problems of ensuring public services and settling the present national political stalemate (namely the carrying out of the presidential and parliamentary elections, the adoption of a more representative electoral law, the management of the displacement problem, etc….).

CRTD.A organized the first part of a training workshop entitled “Leading to a Culture of Democracy”. The event was held at the CRTD.A premises and targeted the leaders and members of the Nationality Campaign Steering Committee. The event extended between 18 and 10 May and focused on building capacities and skills on the meaning of democracy, citizehsip: reposibilities of the individual and of the stage, tolerance, and democratic reforms in addition to participatory decision making and the importance of women leaders in a democracy.

The attitude of the Lebanese government vis-à-vis the Syrian displacement is largely characterized by deception, contradiction and lack of transparency.