We, Citizens4Lebanon, are a group of like minded people who have initiated a grassroots effort in the quest for truth and justice. Our efforts are born of a firm belief in human rights values and a universal principle of anti-violence. Our stance is one of solidarity to all those who have been slain in the past for their ideals and their willingness to so courageously voice them. One such recent victim was Lebanon's ex-prime minister Rafik Hariri, who was killed on February 14^th 2005 along with 18 other innocent victims and a hundred injured civilians. He aspired to establish peace for the people of his country and the region. Such acts of violence, which we believed were no longer part of Lebanon present, have returned to haunt its people. It is our hope that such acts will no longer be part of our future or any other nations’ present or future.

Our position is that citizens in a civil society must practice their democratic rights by publicly voicing their concerns and demands from their elected officials and governments. When these governments fail to respond in kind, as has been historically the case in where such heinous crimes have remained unsolved and the perpetrators unapprehended, it indicates the absence of judicial accountability. Transparency and accountability are essential for any path to the democracy of any civil society. Impunity of such nature should no longer be tolerated. As such, we formulated a petition in order that the Lebanese people may express their sorrow and their indignation not only of the loss of human life, but their support and commitment to the legacy of peace, justice, and non-violence which he also strongly believed in. It is our hope that these thousands of signatures we have collected will be indicative of our support and the Lebanese people’s support for justice. Further, we want to keep the pressure on the leaders of this country to expose the events openly and honestly, laying bare due process. We want this event to change the way in which such matters are handled as a rule, not as an exception. We want to end the cycle of violence in Lebanon that silences opposing viewpoints and true democratic process.