According to a December 17 report, Lebanon Residents are holding sit-ins and protests at banks to access their savings accounts. Since the economic collapse of 2019, Lebanese banks have frozen Lebanese bank accounts and many branches remain closed indefinitely. Wealth deprivation has led a few poor Lebanese to demand their savings at gunpoint, but so far, even these tactics have resulted in most residents either leaving penniless or being arrested. increase.
Lebanese banks deal with protests and gunpoint calls from people trying to get their savings back
August 2019 Lebanon suffers liquidity crisis It has become clear to the world that financial cover-upsandUS sanctionshave demonized Lebanon’s economy, with numerous reports. By the end of 2018, Lebanon’s commercial bankswould freeze the accounts ofpeople, and by the first week of March 2020,Lebanonwould default on its Eurobonds. 26} reportedly stated that
The country began to seek restructuring agreements, and the Lebanese lira exchange rate diverged significantly from the black market rate. The market rate is the actual value of the current currency.” In June 2022, Bitcoin.com News reported that Lebanon’s inflation rate had soared to 211%, economist Steve Hanke said Lebanon should leverage its currency board.
On December 17, NPR columnist Ruth Sherlock sharedhow impoverished Lebanese were able to move out of the bank and into their savings accounts. I explained that I was protesting to access my account. At her IBL bank branch in Tripoli, Lebanon, Sherlock said her 53-year-old woman named Zahra Khaled was sitting in a wheelchair and wouldn’t leave the bank until staff gave up her savings. said. Khaled commented that banks had frozen “tens of thousands of dollars,” Sherlock said in her report.
Sherlock further elaborated that Khaled’s protest was “one of her gentle tactics,” with some using real and toy guns to get their money back. I’m here. An NPR reporter says some Lebanese who resort to this tactic only want “what they owe”. Sherlock’s account that Lebanese bank accounts have been frozen since his 2019, with countless reportsscattered across the internet, since Lebanon’s economic collapse began is confirming. In 2020, angry depositors and protests got so bad that commercial banks reinforced the facades of certain branch buildings with steel and cement walls.
Reuters reported in his September 2022 report that “banks are snowballing in Lebanon as depositors demand their own money.” . Reuters detailed that five depositors seized banks to access their funds, some were able to get around $60,000 while others were detained. I was. In November 2022, Al Jazeera detailed that Lebanese banks had resumed operations for two weeks. “I have been waiting for over two weeks to cash my check,” the Lebanese photographer told Al Jazeera.
Sherlock reported that Khaled negotiated with bank staff for hours, but eventually staff walked away and Lebanese police, known as the Internal Security Forces (ISF), attempted to secure her funds. Escorted Khaled with nothing. Lebanese depositors are in trouble, with protests at banks including Audi Bank, IBL Bank, Brom Bank, BLC Bank, Beirut Bank, França Bank and Byblos Bank. On December 16, Reuters reportedthat a US appeals court had ruled that Lebanese commercial banks could be tried outside Lebanon.
What are your thoughts on Sherlock’s report that Lebanese citizens are protesting in front of Lebanese commercial banks at gunpoint to get money? Comment below. Please let us know your thoughts on this matter in the section.
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