In collaboration with NOW Lebanon, the Weekly Lebanon Round-Up brings you a monthly series of exclusive interviews and coverage of Lebanon's vibrant civil society. Join us each month for a fresh look at Lebanon's culture, social scene and best kept secrets.

Lea Baroudi is a co-founder of MARCH, an NGO "actively seeking to safe keep the tenets of a peaceful and prosperous Lebanon." NOW Lebanon met with the civil rights activist to talk about the NGO's aims, events and its take on censorship.

Q: Tell us a bit more about what MARCH hopes to achieve.

Lea Baroudi: We try to raise awareness among people, especially the youth, about national and civic duties and rights. We work for equality in those rights, and to actually have them exercised in a proper manner. This civic education is one of our main focuses.

 e also work on encouraging honest dialogue and reconciliation between various groups. In Lebanon, we always assemble ourselves in groups, whether they are religious or regional, opposing others. After the war, we've adopted a strategy of taboos that does not work. We don't talk about anything. Not about the war or our problems or about how we cannot trust each other. We postpone our problems. MARCH is trying to raise a generation that accepts more the idea of dialogue and talking instead of just denying everything.

Q: And how have the youth reacted to your initiatives?

Baroudi: We've visited universities in all the regions of Lebanon and what we've noticed, unfortunately, is that in universities in Beirut, the youth tend to be more uninterested in changing things. You always end up getting them interested in some way, but it takes much more effort to do that.

Q: This year, I understand there is emphasis on censorship. Do you think it is being adequately discussed in Lebanon?

Baroudi: Up until now it hasn't, as everyone was censoring themselves, not discussing the issue. People in Lebanon are afraid. We've gone through 15 years of oppression where you couldn't talk about some things, and I think we still have this in the back of our minds. Our main subject this year is freedom of expression and therefore against censorship. Freedom to express your own opinion is the basic right that accompanies all others.

Q: What would you answer those who claim that censorship is necessary so as to not offend a particular group or sect?

Baroudi: It is most important to protect freedom of expression when people don't agree with each other. Salman Rushdie said, "What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist." We're trying to get people to realize that we are all different and we should accept each other without trying to silence anyone.

General Security would tell us that they would rather upset us, an NGO, than authorize a book and have some sheikh or priest stir up the street, which would then get people on the road burning tires. This pre-emptive censorship is the main problem. The government should be strong enough to enforce the law so that no one would dare go out and burn tires, even if they are unhappy.

Q: Tell us about some of the activities you've carried out this year and your plans for the future.

Baroudi: We started by writing a newsletter, part of our F.R.E.E. initiative, which talked about censorship from various aspects and on various topics: on arts, culture, history, the press. We distributed this newsletter at a lot of universities and held many debates.

We organized the F.R.E.E. Festival in collaboration with an international conference called SHARE [in early October].

Another part of the festival is the Museum of Censorship, which is also going to be online. We are archiving everything that was censored in Lebanon, from 1943 until today.

Q: How do you think the internet changed the approach to censorship, has it "softened" it at all?

Baroudi: A law was propositioned to regulate and control the internet, but there was a group that came out called Stop LIRA, the initials of the Lebanese Internet Regulation Act. The importance of the internet is that civil society activated itself online with the campaign, and people got behind it. It is what is helping us activists get our message through and put some pressure on the government and hold them accountable.

Knowing about censorship creates indignation among people. We have noticed this whenever we post about something on another Facebook page of ours called STOP Cultural Terrorism in Lebanon.

The SHARE conference is mainly about protecting the internet and the right of access to information for everybody. At the end of the day, it is the biggest tool against oppression and ignorance. People are getting more and more educated, even if they don't have the means because of this access. It is something that must always be protected.

Q: How best to follow your activities and events?

Baroudi: Through the official MARCH Facebook page and the STOP Cultural Terrorism in Lebanon page https://www.facebook.com/STOPCulturalTerrorismInLebanon. We are now developing our website.

 This interview was edited for length.