Curator Christine Tohme’s passport was finally returned to her after it was withheld for four days by the Lebanese Directorate of General Security due to a warrant against her, ARTINFO reports. Tohme, the founding director of Ashkal Alwan, the Lebanese Association for the Plastic Arts and curator of the 13th Sharjah Biennial (2017), believes this warrant is politically motivated and “directly linked to the domain of my work as a director of […] Ashkal Alwan.”
Tohme’s passport was confiscated on 20 January, after her application for a renewal was denied on the grounds of a warrant issued against her by the domestic security agency, Fera’ el Ma’alumat. No reason was given as to why this warrant was issued, or if it’s still in place. In an email to ARTINFO, the curator of next Sharjah Biennial 12 said: “If any of my actions violated Lebanese law, I am willing to defend myself before a court of law, in a context that is legal and clear”.
25 January 2015.
