Former prime minister Hassan Diab regretted, in an issued statement on Sunday, that Independence Day comes this year heavy with burdens, worries, and the afflicted sufferings of citizens.

“The Lebanese have always wanted to complete their independence through freedom from corruption. They have always dreamt of a homeland  of justice where truth is separated from falsehood, so that balance and equity is ensured among the people and so that the state would emerge from the corridors of narrow calculations to the horizons of the supreme interest that preserves the nation from abusers,” Diab said.

“The homeland is greater than all of us, but the consolidation of belonging can only be achieved by providing the security that citizens seek in their nation through trust in the state’s institutions that are supposed to be the guarantors of achieving the right,” he added, asking the Lord Almighty to protect Lebanon and the Lebanese.