As of late Sunday, Major Michel Matran remains suspended for disciplinary reasons within the General Directorate of Internal Security Forces following a tweet he posted expressing his regret over the state of roads in Lebanon after years of attempting to build a "communication bridge" between the state and citizens through the establishment of the Media and Public Relations Department in the Traffic Control Center, managing its social media accounts after launching the first post from his personal phone over nine years ago. According to reports, Matran is only allowed to communicate with his family once a day under monitored conditions and is not permitted to discuss his suspension.
Matran may be unaware of the significant public support his case has garnered across various media and social networks, which appeared to be more just towards him than to the authorities he belongs to professionally, especially since the latter has disciplined him multiple times and removed him from the file he has managed since the beginning without providing reasons or presenting a more successful alternative.
Matran was summoned for urgent investigation at 6 PM on Friday and was immediately suspended for ten days. Conflicting reports regarding the reason for his suspension have mentioned a tweet he posted six days prior, which stated: “When I established the Traffic Control Center account on Twitter 10 years ago, I wrote the first tweet from my phone in December 2013, and the goal was not to establish an account but to launch a momentum that would drive Lebanon into a new phase in the road safety sector leading to zero deaths and injuries, putting us among developed countries. We succeeded in many areas at that time, but the experience ended in great disappointment after two years.” He added, “Today, the account has turned into a site to report and count daily injuries and deaths! To the Lebanese, the account has become a mourning card. The story of this account resembles the reality of the country in all its details. In a country with a population of 6 million, losing 5 people daily means we are losing 30 per 100,000, which puts us at the top of the world's fatalities in road collisions.”
Late Friday, his wife Joelle Basil was informed that his suspension would extend for at least ten days, explaining, “If there was a substantive reason for his suspension, he would have been referred to the military court. However, Michel Matran is being punished for his passion for road safety, which he considers his cause.” Basil tweeted announcing her husband's suspension, stating, “My husband Michel Matran was summoned like a criminal at six in the evening on Friday in a hurry from our home in Zahle with the goal of detaining him. He was indeed detained by the information branch because he is skilled and professional, due to a post he wrote on social media six days ago. And because you don’t want anyone to tell you about his professionalism, I attached the tweet with the hashtag #FreedomForMichelMatran.”
Minutes later, significant public interaction with Matran's case began, with some recalling the injustice he faced for advocating road safety, recalling the decision to remove him from managing the Traffic Control Center page in 2014, which led to him becoming a prominent figure on social media through the hashtag #WeWantCaptainMichelMatranBack because he had turned into a reference for various media in facilitating traffic work and dealing with emergency cases. Under his management, the page quickly became a reference for tens of thousands of followers.
Matran is known as an active officer with proven competence in his field. According to those who know him, he feels a significant educational duty regarding road safety, which he specialized in even before he became an officer. They express surprise as his expertise is sought after through consultations in various countries, while the Lebanese state punishes him every time he is provoked by its failure to protect people from recurring accidents. Nevertheless, his wife states that if her husband's suspension means making road safety a priority, she is sure he wouldn’t mind if he were suspended for months.
However, Matran's suspension this time is also related to public freedoms. Even if the officer within the Internal Security Forces is functionally subject to Article 160, which states that “active members of the Internal Security Forces and reserves are prohibited from publishing articles, giving lectures, or making statements to the media without prior permission from the Director General,” the essence, according to his wife and MP George Akis, is in applying this article to all judges, officers, and other employees under public employee laws. It should either be enforced universally or should not be selectively applied, especially since Matran's error, according to sources, was speaking on issues impacting people directly related to their safety and lives wasted on the roads, which are regulated by laws that, if properly applied, would not have resulted in the current number of traffic casualties.
Matran's case has received significant reactions specifically in his city, Zahle, with several statements of condemnation issued by its influential figures, notably by Bishop Ibrahim Ibrahim, who expressed sorrow for the detention of “the son of Zahle and our Roman Catholic community,” considering the reason for his detention an issue preserved by the Lebanese constitution and constitutions worldwide based on freedom of expression, especially since the tweet does not contain any transgression of the laws. He called on President Michel Aoun, Prime Minister Najib Mikati, and Minister of Interior and Municipalities Judge Bassam Mawlawi to intervene to return Major Matran to his family in Zahle and to apply the law.
MPs including Selim Aoun and George Akis also condemned the decision, with Akis expressing anger that telling the truth has become a crime in the country, blaming the Director General of Internal Security Forces, who ordered Matran's detention, for every victim that occurs on the roads due to failure to acknowledge the truth. Member of the Strong Republic Bloc MP Elias Stefan emphasized that he is following Matran's case closely, indicating that he “is not left alone, nor will he be a tool of oppression in a country where bullying the honest has become ordinary.” He expressed astonishment at the manner in which a major with significant accomplishments in road safety was treated, as if competence had become a fault punishable, while corruption and negligence thrive across various positions and offices. He stressed the need to release Major Matran today rather than tomorrow, noting the immense violations committed by some officers and people in power without accountability due to the country’s favoritism and selective justice. He stated that “this matter has become unacceptable, and we will not be silent about it anymore and will not allow the silencing and repression policies in a country that venerates democracy and freedom.”
