But state legal harassment, intimidation of journalists, and self-censorship persist as serious obstacles to the free flow of information. In August, authorities initiated legal actions against a number of journalists for covering the controversial book From Israel to Damascus, written by Robert Hatem, the onetime bodyguard of ex Lebanese Christian warlord, former minister, and current member of Parliament Elie Hobeika. The book is an unauthorized biography of Hobeika that contains sordid allegations of philandering, torture, and assassination. State prosecutors also charged Paul Salem, owner of the monthly magazine Lebanon Report, and Jamil Mroue, the magazine's publisher, after he published an article about the book. Although the cases were technically pending at year's end, authorities seemed reluctant to pursue them, perhaps because they were embarrassed by the protests of local journalists.
Lebanese journalists remain vulnerable to a host of vaguely worded criminal statutes.
In particular, criminal-libel laws have been used frequently against newspapers that criticized government officials or foreign heads of state. Such cases are tried in felony courts. Although there is no censorship of the local press, the internal security agency screens foreign publications entering the country and has banned the distribution of media that report unfavorably on local affairs. But news broadcasts reportedly still remain subject to prior censorship. The station had aired a news item that quoted Israeli foreign minister David Levy urging Lebanon to join the peace process.