Lebanese MP attends parliament session wearing gun to his waist: local media

A Lebanese MP attended a parliamentary session on Thursday wearing his gun, local media reported.

Al Jadeed TV said Pierre Bou Assi from the Lebanese Forces party attended the session, which amended an electoral law for next year’s legislative polls, with a gun to his waist.

It added that parliament security later noticed the pistol on his waist as he was leaving the UNESCO Palace building - where sessions are being temporarily held for social distancing - searched him, then asked him to hand over the weapon to his bodyguard.

مطلوبون في مجلس النواب.. وبيار بو عاصي يحضر بوسيلة نقل غير تقليدية ومسدس @Saddamhusseinsy https://t.co/VsCCzEPe8b

— قنـــاة الجـــديـــد (@ALJADEEDNEWS) October 19, 2021

The Parliament's General Secretariat did not immediately issue a statement regarding the circumstances on what happened, and it was not known whether specific measures were taken against the deputy or not.

Bou Assi neither confirmed nor denied the reports.

"I left the hall at the end of the session and gave a press statement, then I went back into the hall. The only ones who can make me leave this hall are the constituencies that brought me in," he wrote on Twitter.

خرجت من القاعة عند انتهاء الجلسة وادليت بتصاريح صحافية ثم عدت ودخلت القاعة ولا يخرجني من قاعة مجلس النواب الا من ادخلني اليها اي الناخبين.

— Pierre BouAssi (@PierreBouAssi) October 19, 2021

Tensions have been high in Lebanon since last week, especially between the Christian Lebanese Forces and Shia Hezbollah militant group and the Amal Movement, after armed clashes left at least seven killed and more than 30 wounded in Beirut.

All the dead were from Hezbollah and Amal, who accuse the Lebanese Forces of ambushing a "peaceful protest" they had organised against the judge leading the investigations on last summer’s Beirut port explosion, Tarek Bitar, who they accuse of politicising the inquiry and being bias.

The Lebanese Forces have not openly claimed responsibility for being behind the 14 October shootout.

Militias were never fully disarmed following the civil war which officially ended in 1990 after 15 years, making gun violence a common scene in the country when political tensions heat up.