Lebanon pupils skip school for third day to demand change

Lebanon pupils skip school for third day to demand change

Author: AFPID: 1573219022352476200Fri, 2019-11-08 11:04

BEIRUT: Thousands of high school students across Lebanon skipped classes Friday for a third day in a row to carry on the flame of the country's anti-graft movement.

Lebanon has since October 17 been gripped by massive cross-sectarian protests demanding a complete revamping of a political system they say is corrupt and inept.

With youth unemployment running at over 30 percent, school students have joined en masse since Wednesday demanding a better country so they don't have to emigrate.

In Beirut, a teenage student who gave her name as Qamar was among thousands of pupils chanting slogans outside the ministry of education on Friday.

"So what if we lose a school year compared to our entire future?“ she said. "I don't want to study in Lebanon and then have to travel abroad“ to find a job.

Around her, students waved red-green-and-white Lebanese flags, as others set off yellow, green, blue and purple flares into the sky.

A poster in rhyming Arabic said: "No studying or teaching, until the president falls.“

Across Lebanon, students protested outside state institutions and banks including in the southern city of Saida, Tripoli in the north and the east's Baalbek.

What started as a spontaneous and leaderless movement has become more organized