Mashrou’Leila topped headlines on Thursday with news of the band disbanding following the ‘stifling’ climate in Lebanon, as they called it.
The Thomas Reuters Foundation reported that the disbandment followed the band being a victim of online abuse.
Hamed Sinno, the lead singer, was the one to announce that the group decided to call it quits after persistent harassment on social media as a result of some of the band members being openly gay.
Sinno says that the band felt ‘pressured’ and could not keep on working that way.
The band consists of seven members who met when they were studying at the American University of Beirut in 2008.
The band has previously released four studio albums: Mashrou’ Leila (2009), Raasük (2013), Ibn El Leil (2015), and The Beirut School (2019); plus an EP, El Hal Romancy (2011), causing many controversies with their satirical lyrics and themes.
The band’s shows were always successful but the more successful they got the more harassment the band faced.
Their concerts started getting canceled and some countries banned them from ever performing on their lands.
Sinno who has always been vocal about not being in the closet told Sarde After Dinner podcast that “it is not a normal life to have 100,000 people telling you on Facebook that you must die.”
Fans expressed their heartbreak following the news on the different social media platforms, mourning the end of a band that was always created by their concerts, a safe space for people to be themselves.
Until the Sarah Hegazi incident happened.
Sarah Hegazi attended a Mashrou’Leila concert in Cairo back in 2017 and waved an LGTBQ+ plus which lead to her being arrested and tortured by Egyptian authorities until she took her life in Canada where she was seeking refuge.
Haig Papazian, a violinist and founding member of the band spoke of this in 2020 in New York Times and detailed the events of the tragedy.
“While I never met Ms. Hegazi, I feel I knew her. A photo from that night immortalizes her, the same one that would seal her fate when it went viral,” said Haigh.
The Egypt concert was the band’s biggest audience, 35.000 attended which made it a memorable night until Sarah’s arrest.
Haig said that following the arrest, the band became a target for cynical politicians and pundits “who stoked religious fervor (be it Christian or Muslim) for their own gain, accusing us of everything from Satanism to debauchery to a lack of authenticity, campaigns often fueled by fake news.”
He remembers Sarah’s last words in her farewell letter before saying goodbye to this life, “To my siblings: I have tried to find salvation and I have failed. Forgive me. To my friends: The journey was cruel and I am too weak to resist. Forgive me. To the world: You were horrifically cruel, but I forgive.”
Fans will always remember the band as revolutionary for always advocating for people and creating music that many related to.
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