9/1/20, 8:44 AM - Concerned Lebanese: IMG-20200901-WA0037.jpg (https://thisislebanon.info/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/IMG-20200901-WA0037.png)
9/1/20, 8:45 AM - This Is Lebanon: When I originally made the decision about us re-allocating the funds to the Kenyans, I did it in concert with a domestic worker/activist I knew on the ground. In hindsight, it was a mistake in the process of building and keeping trust with the workers. Thankfully, she brought that to my attention and helped come up with a plan to respond to the problem.
9/1/20, 8:45 AM - Concerned Lebanese: Please take these posts down, considering it is not you who purchased any of those tickets. This is another type of corruption. If you don’t do so, we will call you out on social media and never provide logisitics support again
9/1/20, 8:45 AM - This Is Lebanon: What, we haven't claimed to buy those tickets?
9/1/20, 8:45 AM - This Is Lebanon: We are purchasing them.
9/1/20, 8:46 AM - Concerned Lebanese: “We’re purchasing them”.
9/1/20, 8:46 AM - This Is Lebanon: We are literally in the process of purchasing them
9/1/20, 8:46 AM - This Is Lebanon: That is what it says in the post.
9/1/20, 8:46 AM - This Is Lebanon: Would you like to see my conversation with Kassem?
9/1/20, 8:46 AM - This Is Lebanon: I know a lot of people are using this opportunity to raise fake funds for domestic workers, but that's not us
9/1/20, 8:47 AM - Concerned Lebanese: I don’t know who Kassem is, I know who is behind the fundraiser and this is a fake claim from your end.
9/1/20, 8:47 AM - This Is Lebanon: You don't need to believe me, just give me a few days to purchase the tickets.
9/1/20, 8:47 AM - This Is Lebanon: Kassem is the assistant consulate. Who do you think is behind the fundraiser?
9/1/20, 8:48 AM - Concerned Lebanese: We will be monitoring your “in the process” very closely in the upcoming days. If you do not actually go through, considering you used the same number as the number of Kenyan women flied home with other people’s donations, you will be called out.
9/1/20, 8:48 AM - This Is Lebanon: Mind if I explain what happened?
9/1/20, 8:48 AM - Concerned Lebanese: Sure
9/1/20, 8:49 AM - This Is Lebanon: One sec, it'll take me a while to write this up and grab the links, but we have posted about this the entire way.
9/1/20, 9:17 AM - This Is Lebanon: On the phone, be back in a sec
9/1/20, 11:19 AM - This Is Lebanon: It's a bit of a read, but here you go:
9/1/20, 11:19 AM - This Is Lebanon: First, if you don't know how the Consul and Assistant Consul are, they really are important figures in this story: https://cnn.it/3hn3xVx We have struggled with them for a long time with great frustration as they have not only ever refused to help, but they have beat-up, stolen from and pimped out women who went to the consulate. We actually have some hard proof that we'll be unleashing soon. The only time the Kenyan Consulate has responded to us with action is when the reputation of a Lebanese national was threatened: https://www.facebook.com/ThisIsLebanon961/posts/923948741415501

We knew the situation and we wanted to increase the pressure on the Consul to repatriate the workers. Therefore, we posted that we are in contact with a local Kenyan activists and were working with her to arrange for us to pay for the 14 mothers with their 16 children and 3 pregnant women: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=306757067311590 (I can talk to this Kenyan domestic worker about contacting you if you're interested. We have not paid her one cent. She's just a Kenyan who helps her people, so we saw that and identified her as a good partner with the Kenyan people. She can verify all this information. I can also connect you with our Kenyan partners in Lebanon.)

The Kenyan Consulate sees that the walls are closing in and tries to prosecute their former secretary for alleged ties with us (note: the assistant Consulate has a mansion and drivers a hummer. His official salary is $600 / mo). We report on it: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=3254580317961658 Here's some more details on the case:
- When she is arrested, the Consulate puts a FB post claiming she was accused of "human trafficking" (which she never was): https://file.thisislbn.com/Qwu088m8
- Kassem (assistant Consul, the attack dog) also told a journalist that Eunice stole money from the Consulate during her work at the Consulate and the money goes for this is lebanon as well. Again, not only was there no evidence of this, there is no evidence of any domestic worker, employer, agent, etc ever sending us money.
- We are very used to phony investigations against us: https://bit.ly/3gp01J2
- Kassem also is saying that "this is lebanon" sent a message to the Consulate saying if you pay us some money, then we will end the workers' protest at the Consulate. <- we've asked him to please publish those messages or send them to the reporters that he has talked to and he has not (because they don't exist, we didn't even arrange the protest, although we would've happily arranged it)
- Kassem later used the Consulate FB page to claim that were were "stealing and blackmailing": https://file.thisislbn.com/rRu7gALw. Again, no evidence. There is not even evidence that we have EVER EVEN ASKED for a Consulate staff, a worker, an employer or an agent to send us money in any way. We have sent workers money dozens of times though when we felt bad for not being able to win their salaries. Note: he also makes the false claim in that post "that’s why she was sent out from the consulate and now to jail" <- also a false statement, and he is the one pressing charges, and he was there with ISF the whole time, so he should know.
- ISF and Kassem entered Eunice's house without a warrant. The charges were from the Consulate (that is supposed to be representing the Kenyans, and Eunice is a Kenyan national). Kassem was trying to hide behind a mask, but Eunice recognized him and pulled it off his face. There were 4 other Kenyan women there who can attest to this.
- When they arrested her, and took TWO of her digital devices, they never found any evidence of any connection with us. Neither did they claim to have any evidence of any connection with us.
- When she arrived at the ISF Cybercrime Bureau, Kassem was there to meet her with a lawyer and told her that she had to use his lawyer (she refused and kept her lawyer she got from the IDWF). So his lawyer was bringing the charge against her, and he wanted her defense to be represented by one of his other lawyers.
- Kassem/ISF immediately decided to drop the charges against Eunice because they were baseless without evidence.
- Multiple journalists who interviewed those at the scene have told us that the ISF said to the Kenyan women, "anyone who talks to This Is Lebanon will be arrested." A journalist from the Daily Star interviewed one of the Kenyan activists (video below) who claimed she and other women on the scene were receiving threatening WhatsApp messages from Kassem Jaber, telling them, "You are next."
- Check the Honorary Consulate FB page (filled with Kenyans calling out Kassem and the Consulate as liars and cheats): https://www.facebook.com/kenyabeirut

We posted again on our commitment to pay for the 14 women, 16 children and 3 pregnant women: https://www.facebook.com/ThisIsLebanon961/posts/927602034383505

Then the Keyan Consulate tries to take another approach, and repatriates the exact workers we committed to pay for: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1000594413713229
- Note: recruitment agencies in Kenya pay an annual bond (of quite a lot of money) as insurance for the repatriation of workers in case of economic disaster. Kenya has not touched that money. We believed that we had the means of pressuring them to do it. See this: https://file.thisislbn.com/Qwu08yqm "to be used for the purpose of repatriation, paying wages and other entitlements in the event of default by the agent or employer." <- the Kenyan workers are supposed to also be guaranteed their lost wages too. There are over 300 accredited agencies on the Ministry of Labour’s list. Which means at least 450 million shillings is going into the bond fund every year. More than enough to repatriate the workers and build them all each a mansion.
- We launched our campaign saying that this needed to be a massive effort, and we would be raising funds for the most dire cases. We identified the Kenyan women with children in Lebanon and pregnant ones as fitting that requirement. We announced that we would pay for their tickets, and a local activist went around to women to gather the details for their exit passports (can't buy a ticket until you have that) and told them we would pay for the tickets.
- About a week later, I received multiple reports that in the same day, these women with children (with an exception of one, who's still having paperwork problems) were cleared to fly and their tickets were purchased for Sunday (tomorrow). It was also reported from a source that Kassem actually worked hard to buy the tickets as soon as he got their paperwork through in an attempt to discredit us.
- If you talk to the local activists and such on the ground, you will see that all the women with children and pregnant women got word of their exit passport and of tickets to fly at basically the same time, so we didn't have "an opportunity" to buy them tickets. This is after a decade of that consulate not lifting a finger to help workers who needed it.
- We said, "We are in the process of buying tickets for women of other nationalities, and it looks like Kenya is going to step-up at this time and get their workers home. Keeping the workers safe and healthy and getting them home is our top priority, so for that, we are thankful. We'll continue to keep an eye on the situation."
- Suspiciously, on August 23, the Consulate posted an update on their Facebook that they had "taken back control of the page after she [it] was stolen by some hackers." Within four minutes of that announcement, the admin of the page begins uploading videos of workers singing the praises of the Consulate. One of the videos posted that day was the video below, where the worker clearly looks to the side to see what to say, then Kassem gives up and just tells her what to say.
- Then on August 26 at 8:12pm, the Consulate uploads a video of Emily where she claims that "Patricia, the one who was involved in the whole thing of threatening and blackmailing my boss, I stopped, the time I talked to her, she did not stop and I actually told her to stop because she was accusing my sponsor without any evidence...I told her to stop, because the whole thing is not true and she's making up the whole thing just to gain money with my name." This is in regards to the story of Jhonny Corm and Jeanne Marie Doueihy Corm: http://bit.ly/johnny-korm The clip was filmed inside the consulate. Emily has now returned home safely with her entire salary. We have a reliable source that says Jhonny "was scared as s**t" by our messages so we'll take the credit for her return with her salary ;) We have another source that has confirmed that the facts of the situation of which we posted about are correct. Furthermore, no one has ever presented any evidence of how we gain money from this, but we did spend $100 in Facebook ads to target his neighborhood to pressure him in releasing and (directly) paying Emily. <- we have all the original messages, especially the ones where her brother reached out to us for help.

Also, regarding our recent post (https://www.facebook.com/ThisIsLebanon961/posts/932620307215011), I wrote it. My first language is English. In the English language, you would NEVER say "we are doing something", for an action that has been completed and is not ongoing. For instance, in "we're purchasing tickets", purchasing tickets is a one-time process, so you would either be in the process of getting the information together to purchase them, in which you'd say "we're purchasing tickets", or if the tickets had already been purchased, you'd say, "we've purchased the tickets". I'm not trying to sound pompous, but you accused me of saying we had purchased the tickets, but that is not what I wrote, and there is no legitimate interpretation of the English grammar that would suggest otherwise.

The reason there are 33 women flying home today is because those are the ones we tried to buy, but Kassem tried to "outmaneuver" us to sow dissent and make us look bad. It was obviously fairly effective, hence your message to us, but we've been in the trenches for years, and we're not leaving. We have always been completely honest, but even if we were liars we're not dumb enough to make such obviously provable statements. We're not going to blow everything we've done for some petty lies or a few thousand dollars. Of the three co-founders, Patricia has given $1000s of her own money to keep the organization afloat. She workers 16-18 hours a day, and typically doesn't take a day off. She receives no salary. Dipendra has not received any salary either, but he has also given $100s to help workers in need. I (Zain) make half of minimum wage if you calculate the hours I work for my pay. Even at that, I only started receiving any salary December 2019, and for the prior 2.5 years, I was a full-time student and help run this on the side without any pay.
9/1/20, 11:19 AM - This Is Lebanon: If you would be willing to share, I would appreciate you giving some insight on who you've heard runs our page, or what you've heard about them. Or even if you'd be willing to share where you've heard it from.
9/1/20, 11:30 AM - This Is Lebanon: Here's our conversation that began last night (right when we posted, before anyone messaged us about the post). The times are Central Time Zone if you'd like to double-check:
- https://file.thisislbn.com/YEuoe0lB
- https://file.thisislbn.com/xQuLR8Zo
9/1/20, 12:20 PM - This Is Lebanon: Figure this is a stretch, but thought I'd throw it out here:

I'm looking for someone who can help us get the list of Kenyan workers who we can purchase tickets for. Kassem at the Consulate wants us to send one of our people down there to get it in person. Obviously, we can't do that (https://bit.ly/3gp01J2), but if you're interested/know someone who's interested in doing that on behalf of us, might be an interesting experience. It is definitely risky, but I think a journalist or someone with a big profile are the only people who can mostly-safely do it

No pressure, and there might be many reasons not to for whoever is considering it, but wanted to throw that out there. He's been trying to bait us to physically show-up for a while, and he claims there's no reason we should be hesitant. At the same time, he is also sending me photos and contact information of people who he claims has worked with us and that he's sent their information to ISF to be investigated. So if there's anyone who's up for it, their information will certainly be sent to ISF for Kassem's investigation, but would be helpful in getting these tickets bought.
9/1/20, 12:32 PM - This Is Lebanon: That's with Kassem, assistant Consul, btw
9/1/20, 2:14 PM - Concerned Lebanese: These ar empty
9/1/20, 2:15 PM - This Is Lebanon: The videos don't load?
9/1/20, 2:29 PM - This Is Lebanon: IMG-20200901-WA0074.jpg (https://thisislebanon.info/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/IMG-20200901-WA0074.jpg)
Here's what those links were supposed to do
9/1/20, 2:29 PM - This Is Lebanon: VID-20200901-WA0075.mp4 (https://thisislebanon.info/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/VID-20200901-WA0075.mp4)
9/2/20, 9:54 AM - This Is Lebanon: I know who's been spreading these lies now, and I don't know what your relationship to this is, but ask if you not participate in them, or if you do want to get involved in what is going on to read the full story for what is happening.
9/2/20, 10:06 AM - Concerned Lebanese: I am looking at the facts
9/2/20, 10:06 AM - Concerned Lebanese: Not at who coes what
9/2/20, 10:06 AM - Concerned Lebanese: Who’s spreading them?
9/2/20, 10:17 AM - This Is Lebanon: I'm really confused, because you said you were looking at the facts, but what is here is blatantly wrong.
9/2/20, 10:22 AM - This Is Lebanon: I'm not going to share that, I'm just going to say that I've heard reports that they've gone around to essentially every single organization to share untrue things.
9/2/20, 10:26 AM - Concerned Lebanese: Why not?
9/2/20, 10:27 AM - Concerned Lebanese: Coild you show us proof of paying for the tickets of the 33 Kenyan women as you claimed to do?
9/2/20, 10:29 AM - This Is Lebanon: On https://thisislebanon.info/donate/donate-to-sendushome/
"How is This Is Lebanon going to be held accountable for these funds? You will hold us accountable! You will be able to see the public amounts on our campaign giving page, and we will post reports with receipts of the expenses incurred for tickets and COVID-19 tests. "
9/2/20, 10:29 AM - This Is Lebanon: I've heard that they're just naive, so don't feel like dragging them through the mud for that.
9/2/20, 10:30 AM - This Is Lebanon: Could you please read this? I'll put the most important part below.
9/2/20, 10:30 AM - This Is Lebanon: Lastly, regarding our recent post (https://www.facebook.com/ThisIsLebanon961/posts/932620307215011), I wrote it. My first language is English. In the English language, you would NEVER say "we are doing something", for an action that has been completed and is not ongoing. For instance, in "we're purchasing tickets", purchasing tickets is a one-time process, so you would either be in the process of getting the information together to purchase them, in which you'd say "we're purchasing tickets", or if the tickets had already been purchased, you'd say, "we've purchased the tickets". I'm not trying to sound pompous, but you accused me of saying we had purchased the tickets, but that is not what I wrote, and there is no legitimate interpretation of the English grammar that would suggest otherwise. Furthermore, the context of the entire message, is that we didn’t purchase the 33 tickets for the 14 women and 16 children with the 3 pregnant women.
9/2/20, 10:32 AM - This Is Lebanon: The entire point of the whole post was that we DID NOT purchase those tickets. I put all that information in the Facebook post, but I didn't have room to put all the information on Twitter, so I put a link to the page with the full information, which again, if you read it, the entire point of the whole thing was that we DID NOT purchase the tickets, but are working on it.
9/2/20, 10:32 AM - This Is Lebanon: If you click the link to the Tweet, here is where it takes you: https://thisislebanon.info/briefing/sendushome-update-for-kenyans-in-lebanon
9/2/20, 10:33 AM - This Is Lebanon: You can also see in the "Edit history" of the Facebook post that we never changed that message: https://www.facebook.com/ThisIsLebanon961/posts/932620307215011 (we made one minor correction on the fees paid by Kenyan recruitment agencies, which was also clarified in the comments)
9/2/20, 10:42 AM - Concerned Lebanese: Will look intot his later tonight, thanks a lot for all this
9/2/20, 10:46 AM - This Is Lebanon: No problem, thanks for looking into it further. Really, we have worked 16-18 hours per a day since the blast to respond to this. Everyday we fail, because Kafala is 100x bigger than we will ever be able to handle. We are truly doing everything we can. We did get in this war with the Kenyan Consulate, and we have the hard evidence on it, he is going down at the end of the day, but dealing with this misinformation has unfortunately had us spending quite a bit of time combatting it, instead of actually serving the migrant domestic workers.