Vivian Thurner
October 10, 2022
Sari Hafiz, right at a May 23 protest in Beirut, quickly became a Lebanese national figure after entering a bank on September 14 with a fake gun and demanding $20,000 of his own money. became a hero. Earlier, the bank denied her request to withdraw money needed to support her family’s cancer treatment, she took her $13,000 and her official bank receipt to the bank. came out. She said, “We are not criminals. We have money, [banks] Stealing it,” said Hafiz.
Lebanese bank executives have frozen deposits for more than two years, limiting the amount people can withdraw. Most people who deposit US dollars are restricted to withdrawing their money in Lebanese pounds at a much lower rate than its actual value.
Hafiz’s success opened the floodgates and over the next week, at least eight others took similar action. On September 22nd, the bank was closed indefinitely. Depositors can access their money from ATM machines only in highly inflated local currency.
Lebanese workers are devastated by the worst economic crisis in the country’s history. The country’s currency has lost almost 90% of its value, unemployment has skyrocketed, and he 75% of the population is in poverty. August inflation was the highest in the world at 137% year-on-year.
Imposing a crisis on workers, capitalist rulers cut subsidies on medicines, wheat, and fuel. A gas tank for a car is now roughly equivalent to a worker’s monthly minimum wage.
