Name Nassir El-Assaad | Died 2012 | |
Nassir bek Al-Assaad(1950-2012) (in Arabic: نصير بك الأسعد), born in 1950 in Beirut, Lebanon, was a key figure in the Future Movement and the March 14 coalition. Assaad began his career in politics in the late 1960s when he became a leading figure within the Communist Labor Organization, and later joined forces with the Palestine Liberation Organization against the Israeli occupation.
Following his resistance against Israel, Assaad fled Lebanon to France in 1982 aboard the ship that was also carrying the leaders of the PLO.
Assaad wrote for Al-Mustaqbal newspaper from 1998 to 2000, and then wrote for Al-Safir newspaper from 2000 to 2001.
He returned to Al-Mustaqbal in 2004 to become its editor-in-chief and served in that capacity until 2010.
The next year, he joined Al-Joumhouriah newspaper. Assaad helped establish the March 14 coalition’s secretariat in 2008 and held the position of the Future Movement’s Cultural Affairs coordinator and was a member of the movement’s executive office until his death.
Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri mourned the passing of Assaad, whom he called an “essential pillar of the Future Movement, the independence uprising and March 14.”
"I mourn with deepest sadness and sorrow the passing away of an essential pillar of the Future Movement, the independence uprising and the March 14 coalition," Hariri said in a statement. "I extend my deepest condolences to his wife, children, the Asaad family and the people of the south," he added. Hariri also said that in Asaad’s death Lebanon lost a figure of justice and freedom. "He has supported the path of independence, sovereignty, truth and national peace with unrelenting determination," Hariri added. A statement by the March 14 coalition’s secretariat also mourned Assaad’s death, saying that he was "brave enough to exercise self-criticism regarding Lebanon’s war and he was the first to point out the brutality of that war and its repercussions on the society." “He was not only one of the founders of the Cedar Revolution, but he was one of the toughest and most responsible figures,” the statement added. Funeral services for Assaad will be held in his hometown of Sidon Monday.
For its part, the National Liberal Party mourned Asaad’s death and praised his involvement in the Cedar Revolution as well as the March 14 coalition.
“The death of Nassir al-Assaad is a loss to Lebanese thought and the nation ... his words will remain as a beacon of freedom in this unhappy East,” said a statement released by the National Liberal Party.
Nassir al-Assaad died of a heart attack 26/5/2012, He was 61.