Relatives of kidnapped pilgrims protest in Beirut

The relatives of the Lebanese Shiite pilgrims who were abducted in the Syrian province of Aleppo staged a protest on Tuesday in the Beirut area of Hay al-Selloum, National News Agency reported.

This comes after Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned his supporters on May 25 against protesting over the issue of the abducted Lebanese :

“Protesting and blocking roads is useless, this is a sin and it is unethical. What good did it do? The abductors were not Lebanese… who were you trying to pressure? I call all people to abstain from such acts if in the future such an incident would reoccur.” Nasrallah said

The case of the Lebanese hostage in Syria is raising fears of renewed street battles in Beirut as Lebanon increasingly gets drawn into the swirling chaos next door. The Syrian crisis already has spilled across the border into Lebanon over the past three weeks, sparking deadly violence in a country that remains deeply divided over the 15-month-old uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The 11 Lebanese men were on their way back from a pilgrimage in Iran on May 22 when gunmen intercepted their buses in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo, according to the women on the pilgrimage who were allowed to go free and arrived in Lebanon hours later.