BEIRUT, Aug 13 (AFP) - Consumer and professional groups called for a new one-day boycott of mobile phones in Lebanon on Monday because of charges reckoned to be among the highest in the world.
Organisers claimed that a similar 24-hour boycott on July 15 cut mobile phone use by half.
The protestors included the professional bodies of doctors, engineers, lawyers, journalists, teachers, social workers and the main trade union.
They accused the government of turning a blind eye to the exorbitant costs of using mobile phones, which are run by Kuwait's Mobile Telecommunication Company (MTC) and the German firm Detecon for a monthly fee of four million dollars each.
Lebanese consumers' association CLA president Zuheir Berro said around a quarter of the population, or 850,000 people, used mobile phones.
He wants callers to be charged by seconds instead of minutes, prices to be cut 30 percent and nighttime rates by 50 percent, along with fixed monthly fees of 25 dollars, and pre-paid cards with extended expiry periods to be on offer.
According to Berro's group, 500 minutes of cellular phone calls cost 121 dollars in Lebanon, compared to 65 dollars in Syria, 66 dollars in Jordan, 47 dollars in Cyprus, 42 dollars in Egypt and 39 dollars in the Emirates.