1 000s hold vigil for journo
02/06/2005 21:37  - (SA)  

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Beirut - Thousands of Lebanese joined a tearful silent vigil in central Beirut as night fell on Thursday to denounce the assassination of a prominent anti-Syrian journalist in a car bombing.

Men and women, many of them crying, stood in silence, holding candles in Martyrs' Square - the site of the popular uprising triggered by the assassination of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri in February.

A few Lebanese flags fluttered as the crowds of people marched to the site of the explosion that killed Samir Kassir in the Ashrafiyeh neighbourhood of mainly Christian east Beirut.

Kassir, 45, was a prominent academic and editorial writer for the leading An-Nahar newspaper, for which he penned virulent articles against the Lebanese regime and its political masters in Syria.

"They killed him because he worked for the democratic process in Lebanon and Syria," writer Elias Khoury, like Kassir a founding member of the opposition Democratic Left movement.

In New York, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan strongly condemned Kassir's murder.

- AFP

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