Tag Archives | ruins

Lebanese journalist/blogger assaulted for taking photos

By Rami on May 15, 2013 in Lebanon

district s

Make sure to read Habib Battah’s story on how he got physically assaulted yesterday for trying to take photos of the ruins at District S construction site in Beirut downtown.

My chest and wrists still hurt from the arms of the men who tackled me, twisted my hands behind my back, and tried to rip my phone out of my hands this afternoon.

They were enraged because I refused to delete a photo of ancient ruins I shot on their construction site.

“Lock the door,” one of the foreman said earlier today, and moments later the giant doors of the site were sealed. I was surrounded by 5 to 6 men looking at me menacingly–prepared it seemed–to do anything to shut me up.

Unfortunately he was told to just forget about it when he tried to report the incident to the police station, so I hope his post reaches some good people who can take action about it!

Should we preserve every single Phoenician ruin in Beirut?

By Rami on June 27, 2012 in Lebanon

The news about the sudden destruction of the ancient Phoenician port in Beirut has flooded the news and the Lebanese blogosphere over the last couple of days. Everybody seems to be against move and some are even asking the minister of culture Gaby Layoun to resign over it.

But let’s be real for a second, downtown Beirut all lay over Phoenician ruins and much more! At the end, it was destroyed and rebuilt 7 times over its 5,000 year history, so the least you can find is ruins WHEREVER you dig around the city! Should we preserve everything we find and halt all construction works for ever? And let’s assume that we’ve succeeded in actually preserving them and turning these site into touristic places, will Khaleeji people be interested in visiting them? In fact, I see them enjoying places like Zaitounay Bay much more than the ancient ruins near the Grand Serail!

Still, don’t get me wrong, I’m not calling to erase our history, but why can’t we be more practical? I know the developers at the Phoenician port did wrong by suddenly demolishing that Phoenician port, but why for instance didn’t we give them the option to maybe move that port to another place instead of totally halting their plans?

Freeze Sodeco! I will shoot you!

By Rami on September 20, 2009 in Freeze I will shoot you

I thought of a fun idea today which is to start a new series of posts called “Freeze, I will shoot you!”. Breathe, the thing has nothing to do with the shooting we’re used to in Lebanon, the idea is to go to some area in Lebanon (where else?!) for the purpose of taking some nice photos of the place and then publish them in a blog post here. I’ll be also open to suggestions if you have some nice place in mind.

I will start today with Sodeco, one of my favorite streets in Beirut. The reason why I originally went there was to shoot the old buildings that still have marks from the civil war on the. I leave you with the photos.

Facing Sodeco square, this building is currently being renovated by the municipality of Beirut.

Showing contrast between two buildings, one has witnessed the civil war and the other eventually didn’t!

Another building currently being renovated.

Same building from the inside.

The street leading to Monot.

P.S: For some reason, the lightbox plugin on my blog (the image overlay thing) seems to be broken, so whenever you click on an image you will be taken to a new webpage instead of displaying it on a grey background. I promise I’ll be working on it today!

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Tag Archives | ruins