"Over the past few years, Lebanon has witnessed an alarming increase in attacks on peaceful speech and expression. The country’s criminal defamation laws, which authorize imprisonment up to three years for peaceful speech, have been used against citizens who have written about pressing social issues, including corruption. Government data indicates a 325% increase in defamation cases for online speech between 2015 and 2018. Based on research conducted over the course of a year and extensive interviews with defendants in criminal defamation cases, lawyers, government officials, and civil society, Human Rights Watch found that the prosecution, security agencies, and judiciary behaved in ways that suggested bias in favour of the complainants. These patterns illustrate the potential for public officials, religious groups, and security agencies to misuse criminal defamation laws as a tool for retaliation and repression. Individuals who had been sued faced a number of serious consequences as a result of the criminal process, including physical abuse and privacy violations during interrogations, pretrial detention, family separation, and considerable mental and financial stress. The increasing use of criminal defamation laws has had a chilling effect on free speech in Lebanon." (Back cover)