Atlanta, United States (CNN) – The Lebanese forces fired tear gas, Wednesday, at hundreds of demonstrators who gathered near the Parliament building in Beirut to demonstrate against the deteriorating economic and political conditions in the country.
Tear gas was fired at crowds trying to break through security barriers to advance towards the parliament building, where demonstrators chanted against the current government.
Among the demonstrators were retired members of the military protesting against economic conditions, and depositors calling on banks to release their withheld savings.
“Lebanon is not okay, we don’t have money for food, for school, we don’t have a government. It’s very expensive,” Samaher al-Khatib, a 40-year-old Lebanese protester, told CNN Wednesday.
Lebanon’s national currency, the Lebanese pound, hit a record low on Tuesday, trading at 140,000 pounds to the US dollar on the “black market,” the parallel market used for almost all transactions in the country.
The new rate was shared on online platforms used by private exchange firms, including the Lira Exchange, which showed dollars were buying at 141,000 Lebanese pounds on the black market from 6 a.m. Tuesday ET.
The latest currency crash occurred as the governor of the Central Bank of Lebanon, Riad Salameh, is under investigation in Lebanon and Europe for allegedly embezzling millions of dollars of public funds.
The value of the lira against the dollar has fallen by more than 98% since 2019.
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