Lebanon’s crackdown on Syrians’ unregistered motorcycles turns deadly
Motorcycles and scooters are a lifeline for many Syrians in Lebanon, but most cannot legally register them. As police crack down, they face fines, extortion and—as seen in the recent killing of a young man at a checkpoint in Beirut—violence.
6 March 2024
Beirut, Lebanon – A thick blue cast engulfs 17-year-old Rabia al-Othman’s left arm. Medical tape stretches across his left cheek, holding together a row of freshly-stitched sutures. Rabia’s worried friends and family gather around him in their small apartment in Burj al-Barajneh, a Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut where many Syrians, like Rabia and his family, also live.
Despite the chatter and concerned queries from his closest family and friends, Rabia is quiet—still in shock from a motorcycle accident, caused by a Lebanese police officer, that killed his close friend days earlier.
“We would go to work together every day,” Rabia told Syria Direct about his friend, 20-year-old Muhammad Zaid al-Hariri. “Sometimes he would sing. He had a beautiful voice.”
On February 23, Rabia and Muhammad were on their way to work—riding a motorcycle as they usually did—when they spotted a police checkpoint. The authorities had already confiscated the motorcycle twice in recent months. Each time, it cost Rabia about a week’s salary from his painting job, $100, to retrieve it. He could not afford to pay a third time.