The Municipality of Tripoli organized a celebration to inaugurate Martyr Mohammed Shatta’s Street, in the presence of former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and a number of members of Parliament.
During the ceremony, Siniora delivered a speech in which he recalled the assassination of Mohammed Shatta, which took place at exactly 9:30 am about twelve years ago in the Starco area near Beit al-Wasat. Siniora described this timing as “significant and symbolic,” because it preceded the sessions of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon regarding the assassination of the martyred President Rafik Hariri by a few weeks.
Siniora explained that the aim of assassinating Shatta was to obstruct the search for the truth, intimidate the Lebanese people, and eliminate the hope of revealing the identity of the criminals who assassinated Hariri and his companions. He stressed that Mohammed Shatta was a son of the city of Tripoli, “the city of science, scholars, thinkers, and fighters for freedom, truth, justice, sovereignty, and national dignity.”
He added that Shatta was characterized by an open and enlightened mind, was honest with himself and with others, and dreamed of Lebanon as a civilized homeland based on a civil state, based on citizenship and equality under a democratic system. He was also a man of dialogue and communication, keen to follow global events and harness economic, financial, political and cultural knowledge to serve Lebanon.
Siniora pointed out that Shatta believed in Lebanon as a state of law and institutions that respect the constitution, in the full implementation of the Taif Agreement as a framework for rebuilding and strengthening the national pact, and in a democratic civil state that enjoys full sovereignty over its territory and institutions, and lives in harmony with its Arab surroundings and the international community and respects international resolutions.
He stressed that Shatta remained committed until the last moment of his life to the values of the Independence Uprising on March 14, 2005, to the values of Lebanon the Message, coexistence, the democratic system, and the civil state, and fought for these principles and gave his life as a price for them without retreat or compromise.
In conclusion, Siniora considered the initiative of the Municipality of Tripoli to name a street after the martyr Mohammed Shatta an initiative worthy of praise and in the right place, because it commemorates the memory of a fighter who resisted tyranny and the crime that targeted Lebanon and its people. He affirmed that the name of Mohammed Shatta will remain immortal in the memory of his family, his city, and Lebanon, saying: “Our martyr lived dear and great, and long live Lebanon a sovereign, free, Arab, democratic, open and remaining homeland for all its sons.”
