On 15 May 2026, LBCI reported that the Prosecutor General at the Court of Cassation, Judge Ahmad Rami Al Hajj, issued a decision not to pursue any prosecution against LBCI, Peter Joe Daher, and Hassan Al Khatib, closing the file on the ground that the elements of a criminal act were not established. The decision also reversed the earlier instruction prohibiting publication or circulation of the video in question, an AI-generated satirical production depicting Hezbollah fighters and Secretary-General Naim Qassem as characters from the “Angry Birds” game. The court found the content fell within the scope of caricatural expression and did not constitute an attack on religious doctrine or sacred symbols.
In the same decision, the prosecutor requested formal charges against Ali Mohammad Barakat and Alaa Mohammad Abu Jabal for content published on Facebook deemed offensive toward Maronite Patriarch Bechara Al Rai. This creates two distinct legal tracks: satirical expression targeting political figures and armed group leadership was found to be protected; content judged to attack a religious figure’s dignity was referred for prosecution.
The outcome is relevant to the enabling environment because it provides a limited but meaningful judicial confirmation that satirical media expression is not inherently criminal, and demonstrates that interim judicial bans on media content can be reversed. However, the parallel prosecution track and the structural persistence of legal mechanisms enabling such complaints and preliminary bans warrant continued monitoring.