Jordan

Uncounted and Unacknowledged: Syria's Refugee University Students and Academics in Jordan

[The following report was issued by the University of California Davis Human Rights Initiative and the Institute for International Education's Scholar Rescue Fund.]   Uncounted and Unacknowledged: Syria's Refugee University Students and Academics in Jordan  The following is a brief preliminary report on the status of refugee academics and university students from Syria residing in Jordan prepared by a multidisciplinary research collaboration between the University of California Davis Human Rights Initiative (UCD-HRI) and the Institute for International Education’s Scholar Rescue Fund (IIE-SRF). It is based on a field assessment that took place in Jordan ...

بمباركة ملكية: إصلاحات يقودها القطّاع الخاص في الأردن

Joint PHROC Statement: UN Resolution on Settlements--Another Missed Opportunity

[The following statement was issued on 25 March 2013 by the Palestinian Human Rights Organisations Council.]   Occupied Ramallah, 25 March 2013 - On Friday, 22 March, the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council (the Council) adopted a resolution, tabled by the State of Palestine, the Organisation of Islamic Conference, and the Arab Group, on the report of the International Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), including East Jerusalem. This report outlined the extensive violations of international human rights and humanitarian law integral to Israel’s settlement enterprise and the ...

Open Sesame: Memories from a War-Torn Generation

Open Sesame Curated by Ola El-Khalidi apexart, Manhattan   17 January -- 2 March 2013   Through a small collection of objects, maps, letters, and photographs, Open Sesame leads viewers back in time to 2 August 1990— the morning Iraq invades Kuwait. The exhibit pieces together the miscellaneous belongings of children at the time, whom curator Ola El-Khalidi refers to as the “Open Sesame” generation. “Open Sesame” is also the Arabic name for the pan-Arab edition of the American children’s TV series Sesame Street, on which one of the children was to appear that day, but never did. Open Sesame captures many similar moments of loss and anxiety that had a ...

Fun, Football, and Palestinian Nationalism

Some of the most enduring memories of fieldwork in al-Wihdat refugee camp are the several evenings I spent watching football matches in the company of my friends.  Al-Wihdat is a Palestinian refugee camp established in 1955 on the outskirts of Amman, the capital of Jordan. The camp today is fully incorporated into the city through urban expansion. When I began my fieldwork in 2009, I expected Palestinian refugee camps to be highly politicized. Setting out to document the significance of Palestinian nationalism in the everyday life of refugees, I was puzzled to observe an ostensible absence of politics–an absence all the more striking as my fieldwork coincided with ...

Palestinian Refugees in Jordan and the Revocation of Citizenship: An Interview with Anis F. Kassim

[Anis F. Kassim is an international law expert and practicing lawyer in Jordan. He was a member of the Palestinian legal defense team before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the 2004 landmark case on Israel’s separation wall, and that led to the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.  The following interview was originally published by BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights in their quarterly magazine al-Majdal.] Hazem Jamjoum: What legal status was afforded Palestinians who came under Jordanian control after the 1948 ...

International Foundation for Electoral Systems FAQs on Jordanian Elections

[The following report was issued by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems on 16 January 2013. While polls have closed at the end 23 January for the 2013 Jordanian parliamentary elections, the document offers details on the policies and procedures guiding the electoral system. It should be noted, though, that the report problematically takes at face value the efficacy of these polices and procedures in bringing about meaningful change, something activists and astute analysts have warned against doing given the managed nature of (authoritarian) contestation these elections represent.] Elections in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan: January 23 Chamber of ...

Supporting Rula Quawas and Academic Freedom: An Interview With A Former Student

On 2 September 2012, Professor Rula Quawas was removed from her position as the Dean of the Faculty of Foreign Languages at the University of Jordan under nebulous circumstances. In a letter addressed to the president of the university, the president of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), Professor Fred Donner, urged the former to repeal his decision. Donner hinted that the decision might have been related to the circulation of a video that Dr. Quawas’ students made for her Feminist Theory course in the fall semester of 2011, which addressed the issue of sexual harassment on the university campus. In the months leading up to the removal of Dr. ...

Getting Past the Brink: Protests and the Possibilities of Change in Jordan

On Tuesday, 13 November 2012, protesters took to the streets across several cities in Jordan. The immediate spark for the protests was the government’s announcement that it would cut fuel subsidies as a means of addressing its budget deficit and securing a two billion dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund. Such cuts are poised to generate price increases of fifty percent for cooking gas, thirty-three percent for heating gas, and fourteen percent on lower car gasoline. Specific figures have been difficult to ascertain, but estimates for the Amman protest average at two to three thousand people, while those in Salt and other urban centers outside the ...

Is the Sky Falling? Press and Internet Censorship Rises in Jordan

Since January 2011, the Jordanian political scene has been significantly affected by the waves of change in the region collectively known as “the Arab Spring.” Emboldened by regional events, some fear that barriers have been broken in Jordan as political and labor activists throughout the country have taken to the streets demanding greater governmental accountability, an end to neoliberal economic policies, and economic corruption, and political representation. Jordanian labor activism expanded exponentially in 2011. In 2011 alone, Jordan Labor Watch, an initiative of the Phenix Center for Economics and Informatics Studies, documented over 800 labor actions. Significant ...

Letter Concerning Removal of Professor Rula Quawas from Her Post as Dean at the University of Jordan

[The following letter was issued by the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association concerning the removal of Professor Rula Quawas from her position as Dean of the Faculty of Foreign Languages at the University of Jordan after a her students produced and published a video on sexual harrassment. To view the video, click here.] 26 October 2012 Dr. Ikhleif Tarawneh President University of Jordan Amman 11942, Jordan Dear President Tarawneh, I write to you on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) to express our concern over the dismissal of Professor Rula Quawas ...