Lokman Slim

Lokman Mohsen Slim (Arabic: لقمان محسن سليم; 17 July 1962 – 4 February 2021) was a Lebanese Shiite publisher, political activist, and commentator. As a contributor to the development of civil-society initiatives, several of which he founded, he promoted a Culture of Remembrance to cope with the many past and present conflicts of Lebanon and the whole region. Slim was known to be a prominent critic of Hezbollah (as well as all other sectarian parties). He was found shot to death in his car in Hezbollah-dominated southern Lebanon in 2021. Many people, including Slim's sister have alleged Hezbollah to have committed the assassination, a charge that Hezbollah has denied. Lokman Mohsen Slim was born in Haret Hreik, what was then a village near and is now Southern Beirut. He was the scion of an influential Lebanese-Shia family with strong ties to the Christian elites. His mother Salma Merchak, who survived him, was an Egyptian born novelist of Lebanese Christian roots. His father Mohsen Slim was a deputy (MP) in the Lebanese parliament from 1960 to 1964 and in 1977 founded the Shia-dominated party of the Union des Forces Libanaises, which demanded the disarmament of the militant Palestinian forces in Lebanon. Later in the course of the Lebanese Civil War he moved his law practice to Paris. Lokman Slim moved to France in 1982 to study philosophy at the Paris-Sorbonne University. He returned to Beirut in 1988. Two years later, he founded Dar al Jadeed Publishing House, which publishes Arabic literature and essays of controversial content. Its publications range from books banned by the Lebanese General Security to the first Arabic translations of the writings of Muhammad Khatami, the former Iranian reformist president, which generated controversy within the Shia community in Lebanon. Several of Slim's articles, essays, and translations have been published in English, French, and Arabic newspapers and books. He lived and worked in the Southern Suburbs of Beirut, Greater Beirut, South Lebanon, and the Bekaa Valley. In 2001, Slim moved into film with the establishment of Umam Productions, which has produced several films, including Massaker co-directed by Slim and his German wife Monika Borgmann. It won the Fipresci Award at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2005.