The Tragedy of the Migration Boats between the Conspiracy and Corruption of the Authorities
(Translated)

Two blessings that Allah Almighty reminded the people of Makkah with after they turned away from the call to Islam.

(الَّذِي أَطْعَمَهُم مِّن جُوعٍ وَآمَنَهُم مِّنْ خَوْفٍ) “Who has fed them against hunger and made them secure against fear” [TMQ Quraysh:4]; food and security, and the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said in what Al-Tirmidhi narrated on the authority of Ubayd Allah bin Muhsin, he said: The Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, said:

«مَنْ أَصْبَحَ مِنْكُمْ آمِناً فِي سِرْبِهِ، مُعَافًى فِي جَسَدِهِ، عِنْدَهُ قُوتُ يَوْمِهِ، فَكَأَنَّما حِيزَتْ لَهُ الدُّنْيَا»

“Whoever among you wakes up physically healthy, feeling safe and secure within himself, with food for the day, it is as if he acquired the whole world.”

At the end of 2019, a state of gradual collapse began in Lebanon, with which people lost or almost lost their livelihood, and people's incomes became a pile of papers, barely feeding them, so that the employee's monthly income became among the lowest in the world, equivalent to one dollar a day.

Then, recently, the loss of security among the people added to that, hardly a day passes without hearing cases of murder here, robbery and assault there, and the use of various types of weapons among people for trivial reasons in any transient problem. Lebanon recorded a high rate of people’s possession of individual weapons, what has become known as self-security! According to a Swiss website specialized in monitoring and combating the spread of individual weapons worldwide: “Lebanon has 1.927 million pieces for a population of about 6 million, which means that it ranks second in the Arab world after Yemen, and ninth globally, in the number of weapons in relation to the population, and outperforms on Iraq, which has been mired in security and political chaos for nearly 20 years!

The occurrence of these two things in Lebanon, hunger and insecurity, has perpetuated a tragic phenomenon for months, which is the attempt of people to leave the country by unsafe means, most notably by taking the sea to try to reach the shores of European countries, the last of which has left nearly a hundred victims.

These boats, unfit for such trips, leave the shores of Lebanon loaded with people who sold their belongings and everything they owned, and carried the weak among their women and children, even the infants among them, from the people of Lebanon, Palestine and Syria, on board. Then these boats sink in the open sea, in heart-breaking scenes between the screams of children, women and men, and the scene of someone who disposes of his son’s body before it rots after his death in a state of thirst and hunger and drinking sea water, or the body of a floating infant, or whose heart squeaked with heartburn because he could not save his friend who did not know how to swim, or who called upon what was left of his child’s belongings screaming oh Allah.

Who is responsible for what is happening today in terms of hunger and insecurity?! Is it correct to place it on people's shoulders?!

We, in Hizb ut Tahrir in Wilayah of Lebanon, raise our voices loudly by holding the Lebanese authority and its apparatus full responsibility for the situation, due to the absence of the state and its apparatus, which is clearly and fundamentally caused by the rampant corruption in the ruling political class first, and secondly, the lack of real progress in any available solutions.

The authority and its apparatuses are aware of the exit of such boats from the shores of Lebanon. Some smugglers even take migration seekers to the shores in clear convoys, and most of these smugglers are well known to the authorities. Where are the authority institutions and technologies that it possesses to monitor the movement of ships?! And where are the security services with multiple names, characteristics and actions that rush from one corner to another at the will of the politician and the authority?!

The matter is that this authority trades the lives of these people from Lebanon, Palestine and Syria, and brandishes them as a card to elicit the aid of donor countries. Regularity by European countries for immigration seekers?

The matter is that this authority trades the lives of these people from the people of Lebanon, Palestine and Syria, and brandishes them as a card to seek the aid of donor countries. Otherwise, what does the statement of the Minister of Environment in the Lebanese Authority, Nasser Yassin, mean on Al-Jazeera Channel on 24/09/2022 that the solution is to open the door to regular immigration by European countries for immigration seekers? What does the Minister of Social Affairs, Hector Al-Hajjar, say to the Lebanese authority, in a news release on Al-Jazeera on the same day, that they warned the international community of Lebanon's inability to bear the large number of Syrian refugees?! This is in addition to the statements of Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati regarding refugees, and the statements of the Patriarch of the occurrence of war because of the presence of refugees!

These transcendent statements about the duty of the state and the authority to care, and the ignoring of the authority and its apparatus of these traffickers of people's pain, only means one thing: O donor countries, either you pay us money, or we throw the lives of these refugees in your face!

In summary, there is no food and security in Lebanon, while a small group of its people combines power and money, which the fathers bequeath to the sons! These rich lords of power gather their clubs and their money, while they preoccupy people with the struggle for their food, and even the struggle is according to their sects! They kill each other, and put themselves at risk in order to leave the country because of the insecurity and despair of the authority and its apparatus.

As for you, our people, we are not saying that you are responsible for this deteriorating situation, for you are the ones who are feeling its fire, but we say, reminding you:

What happens to us and to you is the change against these corrupt people, and not the continuation of silence on accepting scenes of daily death in the streets and seas, and even suicide; It is up to every honorable person in general in Lebanon to go through a process of change and reject this corrupt political class.

Here, we remind the people of those they elected not long ago to represent them in parliament, so what was the result?! They became deputies, and the issues increased with them! And here are your cities, rather the metropolises of the Mediterranean and Levant coasts, Tyre, Sidon, Beirut and Tripoli, which these representatives and those they elected to represent claim to be drowning in darkness and thirst, drowning in poverty, and drowning their children in the sea! So where are yesterday's promises of change within the system?!

They do not have solutions except from the same type of system! The corrupt system that bears its doom in itself, and it is futile to attempt a solution through it, which is what Hizb ut Tahrir in Wilayah of Lebanon warned of in its written and visual publications during the elections in May 2022, which it issued at the time warning against participating in the electoral process, including a publication entitled “It is not permissible to run or vote in the parliamentary elections...” and another entitled “On the doors of elections and calls for intensifying participation in their sin”.

And here we are again, addressing all the people of Lebanon, yes, all the people of Lebanon, not only Muslims, with the true saying, which must be understood, accepted and acted upon by every free, sane and capable.

Moreover, it is an obligation for a capable Muslim, as the saying of the Messenger of Allah (saw) in what Al-Tirmidhi narrated on the authority of Hudhaifah, may Allah be please with him, he said: The Messenger of Allah (saw) said:

«والَّذِي نَفْسِي بِيَدِهِ، لَتَأْمُرُنَّ بالْمَعْرُوفِ، ولَتَنْهَوُنَّ عَنِ المُنْكَرِ، أَوْ لَيُوشِكَنَّ اللَّه أَنْ يَبْعَثَ عَلَيْكُمْ عِقَاباً مِنْهُ، ثُمَّ تَدْعُونَهُ فَلا يُسْتَجابُ لَكُمْ»

“By the One in Whose Hand is my soul! Either you command good and forbid evil, or Allah will soon send upon you a punishment from Him, then you will call upon Him, but He will not respond to you.” And the Messenger of Allah (saw) also said as narrated by Abu Dawood and Al-Tirmidhi on the authority of Ibn Masoud May Allah be pleased with him:

«واللَّه لَتَأْمُرُنَّ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ، وَلَتَنْهَوُنَّ عَنِ الْمُنْكَرِ، ولتَأْخُذُنَّ عَلَى يَدِ الظَّالِمِ، ولَتَأْطرُنَّهُ عَلَى الْحَقِّ أَطْراً، ولَتَقْصُرُنَّهُ عَلَى الْحَقِّ قَصْراً، أَوْ لَيَضْرِبَنَّ اللَّه بقُلُوبِ بَعْضِكُمْ عَلَى بَعْضٍ، ثُمَّ ليَلْعَنكُمْ كَمَا لَعَنَهُمْ - أي بني إسرائيل»

“I swear by Allah, you must enjoin what is good and prohibit what is evil, prevent the wrongdoer, bend him into conformity with what is right, and restrict him to what is right i.e. the people of Israel.”

Taking care of the affairs is the duty of the state and the authority, and holding the unjust and corrupt ruler accountable is the duty of the people. The Messenger of Allah (saw) said in what Al-Nasa’i narrated on the authority of Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq, may Allah be pleased with him he said: I heard the Messenger of Allah (saw) say:

«إِنَّ النَّاسَ إِذَا رَأَوا الظَّالِمَ فَلَمْ يَأْخُذُوا عَلَى يَدَيْهِ أَوْشَكَ أَنْ يَعُمَّهُمُ اللَّه بِعِقَابٍ مِنْهُ»

“If the people see an evildoer and do not stop him, soon Allah will send His punishment upon them all.”

Hizb ut Tahrir in Wilayah Lebanon invites you to work with it on the method of change that it follows with a clear and integrated method to building the state. It is not any state, but the state desired by the All-Knowing, the All-Wise, the state that expresses the reality of succession on earth that Allah the Almighty wants not only for Muslims but for humanity, the Islamic State; the Khilafah Rashidah (Rightly Guided Caliphate) upon the method of the Prophethood.