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Beirut : In polarised Lebanon, a poster depicting the leader of one of the country's rival political factions can spark a fight - or even a gunbattle.
So shopkeepers on Beirut's Al Maamoun Street are breathing a little easier now that a "poster disarmament" has been declared.
Most of the posters once plastered on Beirut's walls and lampposts have come down by agreement between the main factions of Shiite and Sunni Muslims - part of a broader attempt to ease nearly three years of sectarian and political tensions that almost dragged the country back into civil war.
The move is giving a new look to a city where political posters and banners once were far more numerous than advertising billboards. It's not just symbolic, either.
Posters have sparked battles with sticks and stones - or more lethal weapons.
In the mixed Sunni-Shiite neighbourhood of Basta, several people were injured in fights along Al Maamoun Street earlier this year when a portrait of slain former Sunni Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and his son Sa'ad was torn down.
And last month, two people died in a gunfight between rival Christian groups over the hanging of a political banner in a village in north Lebanon.
'What a relief'
"What a relief," Assad Shami, an 80-year-old Shiite barber in Basta, said of the disappearing posters.
"It's a positive step that defuses tensions and eliminates one of the causes of sectarian fights," said Mohammad Halawani, a 55-year-old Sunni grocer in the same area.
The Muslim factions took down their posters simultaneously around Beirut at the start of the month, and political graffiti was cleaned off walls.
Lebanese have long dotted their cities with portraits of political leaders or martyrs killed in battles to mark territory or put down rivals. So posters of the top men in the main political factions - like the Sunni Hariris and Hassan Nasrallah of the Shiite movement Hezbollah - were ubiquitous.
Poisoned atmosphere
But the portraits took on greater weight in the pois-oned atmosphere of Leb-anon since 2005, when the country has been torn in a power struggle between pro- and anti-Syrian politicians - the former largely Sunni and the latter led by Hezbollah. Since the factions are mostly based on religious sects, the posters could be seen as claiming power for one sect over another.
Shopkeeper Jamal Mekkawi remains sceptical that peace can grow from poster removal. He said it should be followed by a reconciliation meeting between Sunnis and Shiites.
With elections just months away, no one expects the portraits to stay down for long. And political loyalties still are advertised inside homes and shops - a picture of Nasrallah hangs in Assad Shami's barber shop on Al Maamoun Street. The key is to keep those loyalties from spilling into street violence, said Kamal Khashab, a 70-year-old Shiite grocer.
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