The wrapper of a packet of Master Company crisps displaying the colors of the rainbow. (Credit: NNA)
BEIRUT — Lebanese company Master Chips announced on Monday that it will change the packaging of a packet of chips displaying a rainbow, the colors of which represent the LGBTQ+ community, days after the Interior Ministry called on security forces to stop events that “promote homosexuality,” amid threats and intimidation toward the LGBTQ+ community from elements of the public.
Here’s what we know:
• Reacting to “rumors” that were pointing at the colors displayed on the t-shirt of a fox appearing on the packaging of one of its products under the name "Snackers", the company clarified, in a statement, that this illustration “has been used for more than a decade and is not related to the symbol” of the LGBTQ community, without naming it.
• Amid celebrations of Pride Month by the LGBTQ community, Lebanon's caretaker Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi sent a letter on Friday to the General Directorate of General Security and the General Directorate of the Internal Security Forces (ISF) calling on security forces to prevent gatherings that "promote sexual perversion,” referring to homosexuality.
• Lebanon's top Sunni religious figure, Mufti Sheikh Abdel Latif Derian, said that Dar al-Fatwa (the highest Sunni authority in Lebanon) “would not allow the legalization of homosexuality or civil marriage.”
• Helem, an NGO dedicated to the rights of the LGBTQ+ community, issued a response Saturday to Mawlawi’s statement, describing the minister’s remarks as a scapegoating tactic to “distract the public from [the government’s] failures and corruption.”
• A demonstration that was scheduled for Sunday at 5 p.m. in front of the headquarters of the Interior Ministry in Beirut to protest a decision to ban events “promoting homosexuality” was postponed due to "threats," according to its organizers.
• Meanwhile, a Christian group calling itself the "Soldiers of God" posted a video of its members tearing apart a billboard in which the LGBTQ+ rainbow flag was formed with flowers in Ashrafieh.
• Article 534 of the penal code criminalizes “sexual intercourse contrary to nature," but in recent years, court rulings have held that this does not apply to consensual same-sex relations between adults.