BEIRUT (Dispatches) – About 20,000 people participated in mass rallies organized by the Lebanese Communist Party in Beirut on Sunday to protest the authorities' economic policy amid the Arab League Economic and Social Development Summit.
"We organized this demonstration before the Arab League summit [was scheduled], but when the date of the summit was announced and it coincided with the rally, everything turned out even better. Our demonstration has become a message to those [Arab League] leaders who are now meeting [at the forum], because in many Arab countries, the socioeconomic situation is even worse than in Lebanon, and people are taking to the streets [there]," a member of the communist party's political bureau told Sputnik.
According to the organizers, the number of demonstrators had surpassed their expectations, with several non-governmental organizations and other political forces joining the protests as well.
The protesters, notably, accused the country's authorities of deliberately causing a financial crisis in Lebanon, also allowing unjustified price hikes and low wages.
The Arab League summit began in Beirut on Thursday with a session of a committee of specialized delegations. Almost all leaders of the league member-states, except for the Mauritanian president and the Qatari emir, refused to participate in the event, sending other high-level representatives instead.
Lebanese President Michel Aoun urged world powers on Sunday to step up efforts for Syrian refugees to return home, regardless of any political solution to the war there.
Aoun told an Arab economic summit in Beirut that Lebanon had suggested solutions for safe returns for the meeting to agree.
Since conflict broke out in Syria in 2011, more than 1 million people have fled across the border to Lebanon, where aid agencies say most live in extreme poverty.
The United Nations says it is not yet safe to return.
Lebanese officials have called for refugees to go home after Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad reclaimed most of the country with Russian and Iranian help.
Divisions among Arab states over Syria, and internal disputes in Lebanon, have undermined the summit before it began, with several leaders staying away.
A key point of contention has been whether to bring Syria back into the Arab League, more than seven years after its membership was suspended.
Iraq and Lebanon want rapprochement with Damascus.
"Lebanon calls on the international community to make all efforts possible and provide suitable conditions for a safe return of displaced Syrians... without tying that to reaching a political solution,” said Aoun, a political ally of Hezbollah.

About 20,000 people participated in mass rallies organized by the Lebanese Communist Party in Beirut on Sunday to protest the authorities' economic policy amid the Arab League Economic and Social Development Summit.