US journalist freed in Lebanon after call by rights groups

Lebanese authorities release a freelance American journalist who was detained in Beirut last month, just hours after two international human rights groups called her detention arbitrary and demanded that she be set free.

Nada Homsi says after her release that her arrest was part of an intimidation campaign used by Lebanon’s security agencies against foreign journalists.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said Homsi was arrested without a judicial order on November 16 by members of Lebanon’s General Security Directorate. The reasons for the raid remain unknown and her detention now is arbitrary, the groups had said.

Since Lebanon’s economic meltdown began two years ago, many foreign and local journalists have reported on widespread corruption among the country’s political class, which has been running the small nation since the end of the 1975-90 civil war.