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Jordan
مقابلة: تحديات العمل من أجل حقوق العمال الاجانب في الاردن
![[ليندا الكلش: المصدر صورة من فيديو، تصوير وسام الصليبي]](/content_images/3/sm_Screenshot2012-01-22at8.23.08PM.png "[ليندا الكلش: المصدر صورة من فيديو، تصوير وسام الصليبي]")
تعرض السيدة ليندا الكلش في الفيديو التالي، والذي قام بتصويره وسام الصليبي، الإنتهاكات التي يتعرض لها العمال الأجانب في الأردن والدور الذي يلعبه مركز „ تمكين“ لمساعدتهم . تدير السيدة ليندا الكلش مركز „تمكين“ للمساعدة القانونية وحقوق الإنسان في الأردن وقد حصلت على جائزة „الجمهورية الفرنسية لحقوق الإنسان“ والتي منحها إياها عام 2011 الآن جوبيه، وزيرالخارجية الفرنسي بمناسبة اليوم العالمي لحقوق الإنسان والذي يصادف في 10 يناير/ كانون الثاني. وقُدمت الجائزة للمركز تقديراً وتشجيعاً وإشادة بمجهوداته في الدفاع عن حقوق العاملات الأجنبيات في المنازل في الأردن. وشهد الأردن تغيراً وتحديثاً في قوانينه المتعلقة بالحفاظ على حقوق العمال. إلا أن غياب الكفاءات ...
Keep Reading »Statement on Press Restrictions in Jordan's New Anti-Corruption Bill
![[Mock obituary for press freedom in Jordan. Image from Shihannews.net]](/content_images/3/sm_jordan.shihannews.net.09301.jpg "[Mock obituary for press freedom in Jordan. Image from Shihannews.net]")
[The following statement was issued by the Committee to Protect Journalists on 30 September 2011.] New York, September 30, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists is disheartened by the passage in Jordan's lower chamber of Parliament of a draft anti-corruption law which would allow heavy fines for publishing information on corruption, and calls on the upper chamber to reject the bill. On September 27, the chamber of deputies passed the draft law, which would allow fines for public accusations of corruption "without solid facts" of between 30,000 and 60,000 Jordanian dinars (US$42,000 to US$84,600) -- but failed to elaborate on what would ...
Keep Reading »Kamal Salibi (1929-2011)
![[Image from Wikimedia Commons.]](/content_images/3/sm_-K.Salibi-1-July_09.jpg "[Image from Wikimedia Commons.]")
Scholars of Lebanon collectively grieved at the news of the passing of Kamal Salibi, eminent historian, professor, and prolific author, on Thursday, 1 September, 2011. Salibi spent most of his academic career as a faculty member of the Department of History and Archeology at the American University of Beirut (AUB), from 1953 until 1998, at which point he was appointed Professor Emeritus. Not only did he help shape the world view of undergraduates for over four successive decades, one would be hard pressed to find a single graduate student of Lebanon– or, indeed, trained in the historiography of the Middle East– in any academy whose intellectual foundations were not in ...
Keep Reading »Jordan's Assault on Journalism
Free speech beaten by book and by bludgeon Character assassination is a hot topic in Jordan these days as thousands of demonstrators, riding the winds of the "Arab Spring," call for reform and accuse government officials and business leaders of abuse of power and corruption. Asking judges to put critical journalists behind bars is also popular among a ruling class that feels threatened by the sudden surge in revelations pouring out on the street and from the media. The government of Prime Minister Marouf al-Bikhit is doing its bit to stifle free speech in the name of fighting corruption. A draft amendment to a law setting up an anti-corruption agency would ...
Keep Reading »Report on Foreign Workers in One of Jordan's Export Production Factories
![[Classic Fashion PR. Image from IGLHR report on Jordan.]](/content_images/3/sm_jordanworkers.jpg "[Classic Fashion PR. Image from IGLHR report on Jordan.]")
[Below is the latest from the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights on Jordan.] Sexual Predators and Serial Rapists Run Wild at Wal-Mart Supplier in Jordan: Young women workers raped, tortured and beaten at the Classic Factory Executive Summary According to witnesses who work at Classic Fashion, scores of young Sri Lankan women sewing clothing for Wal-Mart and Hanes have suffered routine sexual abuse and repeated rapes, and in some cases even torture. One young rape victim at the Classic factory in Jordan told us her assailant, a manager, bit her, leaving scars all over her body. Women who become pregnant are forcibly deported and returned to Sri Lanka. ...
Keep Reading »From Gun to Pen: The Palestinian Revolution Lives
This Is My Picture When I Was Dead. Directed by Mahmoud Al-Massad. Netherlands/Jordan, 2010. ‘If you don’t know Ma’moun Mreish, you don’t know the history of the Palestinian Revolution.’ This line is key to the mixture of personal and national history presented by director Mahmoud Al-Massad in This Is My Picture When I Was Dead. It begins with the shooting of father and son, Ma’moun and Bashir Mreish, in Athens in 1983, one of many Mossad assassinations of senior PLO cadres. The film then hints, and later confirms, that four-year old Bashir did not die, having been shielded in some way by the way his father had been holding him. It turns to relating the way his life ...
Keep Reading »Jordan's New Opposition and the Traps of Identity and Ambiguity
![[Chair of the National Dialogue Committee. Image from Petra News Agency.]](/content_images/3/sm_jordannewopposition.jpg "[Chair of the National Dialogue Committee. Image from Petra News Agency.]")
There are two major tribulations in Jordan from which all other issues stem. The first is the autocratic authority that dominates the role of all “state institutions” (i.e., the Cabinet, the Parliament, and the Judiciary). This autocratic domination is legally sanctioned by the Jordanian constitution: · Article 26 states that “The Executive Power shall be vested in the King, who shall exercise his powers through his Ministers.” · Article 35 states that “The King appoints the Prime Minister and may dismiss him or accept his resignation. He appoints the Ministers; he also dismisses them or accepts their ...
Keep Reading »Essential Reading: State Building and Regime Security in Jordan
![[Google Images]](/content_images/3/sm_jordan1.jpg "[Google Images]")
[Editors’ Note: This is the first in a series of “Essential Readings,” in which we ask contributors to choose a list of must-read books, articles, and new media resources on a variety of topics. These are not meant to be comprehensive lists, but rather starting points for readers who want to read more about particular topics. Ziad Abu-Rish, a Co-Editor of Jadaliyya, provides a list of readings focusing on state building and regime security in Jordan. Some of Abu-Rish’s own writing on Jordan can be found here and here.] Two themes have dominated historical and contemporary accounts of state building in Jordan. The first is the idea that Jordan is an ...
Keep Reading »The Alternative Opposition in Jordan and the Failure to Understand Lessons of Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions
In Jordan, no one seems to have learned from the lessons of Tunisia and Egypt. Especially not the “opposition,” which can be divided into the “official” opposition and the “alternative” opposition. The "official" opposition—comprised of the legalized opposition parties and professional associations—still seeks weak reformist goals that constitute a continuation of its collapsing course that began in 1989 (the year marking the end of martial law in Jordan and the onset of the so-called “democratic era”). This official opposition is made up of three broad sets of groups: the Islamists, featuring the Muslim Brotherhood and their political wing the Islamic Action ...
Keep Reading »Jordan: The Limits of Comparison
![[Recently appointed Prime Minister, Ma'rouf al-Bakhit. Image from unknown archive]](/content_images/3/sm_Bakhit.jpg "[Recently appointed Prime Minister, Ma'rouf al-Bakhit. Image from unknown archive]")
On Tuesday, February 1, 2011, Prime Minister Samir al-Rifa’i submitted his resignation and that of his cabinet. Such developments come in the wake of three consecutive Fridays, wherein protesters throughout Jordan decried the existing economic conditions and called for the resignation of Samir al-Rifa'i’s government. The persistence of protesters week after week and the subsequent resignation (i.e., dismissal) of al-Rifa’i’s entire cabinet – despite various government attempts to appease the public – have led many to lump Jordan within the broader wave of social and political unrest that has swept the Arab world (most notably Tunisia and Egypt). However, a close ...
Keep Reading »Resistance and Revolution as Lived Daily Experience: An Interview with Leila Khaled (Part 4)
[This is Part 4 of a translated transcription of a series of interviews conducted by the author with Leila Khaled during the summer of 2007. Click here to read the Introduction to the interview, here to read Part 1, here to read Part 2, and here to read Part 3] After a brief training period in Jordan in 1969, I found myself in Lebanon meeting with Dr. Wadi Haddad. He asked me if I was ready to die. I replied that I was and asked why. He then told me that the real ...
Keep Reading »From Gun to Pen: The Palestinian Revolution Lives
[Note: This Is My Picture When I Was Dead is the opening film at the DC Palestinian Film & Arts Festival, Monday, 26 September 2011 at Landmark E Street Cinema, 7pm. The festival runs Monday-Friday 26-30 September. For more information please visit http://dcpff.tumblr.com. This review of the film was originally posted on 11 May 2011.] This Is My Picture When I Was Dead. Directed by Mahmoud Al-Massad. Netherlands/Jordan, 2010. "If you don’t know Ma’moun Mreish, you don’t know the history ...
Keep Reading »The Politics of Royal Pluralism in Jordan
While the people have demanded the fall of their regimes in streets and squares across the Arab world this year, those regimes have offered a persistent, if predictable, reply: “the people just aren’t ready for us to go yet.” This accusation of unpreparedness has taken a few different forms in different contexts: “The people are too sectarian” (Bahrain and Syria); “too tribal” (Libya and Yemen); “too Islamist” (Egypt, Libya, Syria); “too underdeveloped,” “too radical” “too violent,” “too weak and ...
Keep Reading »The Reemergence of the Jihadist Salafis in Jordan
Observers of Islamist politics during the Arab uprisings noticed that the Muslim Brotherhood has been late to the game but few have taken notice of a group of Jordanian Islamists who have taken to streets with knives, clubs, and a very provocative message. The Jihadist Salafi Movement in Jordan capitalized on the growing tensions throughout the region by engaging in open protest. One of their largest demonstrations on April 15th resulted in a major clash with police forces, leaving eighty-three ...
Keep Reading »Que ha pasado con las protestas en Jordania
[This article was written in English by Ziad Abu-Rish and translated/published in Spanish by www.rebelion.org] ¿Qué ha pasado con las protestas en Jordania? [Traducción para Rebelión de Loles Oliván] A raíz de “la primavera árabe”, en Jordania se celebraron durante los viernes de nueve semanas consecutivas numerosas protestas y sentadas en las que se reclamaban reformas políticas y económicas. Pero mientras que la intervención de la OTAN en Libia se ha ...
Keep Reading »What Happened to Protests in Jordan
In the wake of the “Arab Spring,” Jordan witnessed nine consecutive weeks of Friday protests as well as numerous sit-ins calling for political and economic reforms. But as NATO’s intervention in Libya deepened, civil society in Bahrain was brutalized, protests in Syria expanded, and struggles over the limits of regime change in Egypt and Tunisia continued, a tense calm eventually prevailed in Jordan. There are no more Friday protests. In fact, there are almost no more manifestations of contentious ...
Keep Reading »Sultana: A Chapter from a Novel by Ghalib Halasa
Ghalib Halasa was an author of seven novels, two short story collections, and several works of journalism, literary criticism, translation and political analysis. He was born in a Jordanian village near Madaba in 1932 and died in Damascus in 1989. He lived in Baghdad, Cairo, Beirut and Damascus and his work is a powerful example of border-crossing engagement and brilliance. His work has only very rarely been translated. Sultana was first published in 1987 and was Halasa's second to ...
Keep Reading »Jordan's March 24 Youth Sit-in Violently Dispersed (Videos)
Though unclear as to the exact date of their formation, a group of young Jordanian men and women came together some time ago calling for a sit-in at Amman's Dakhilliyyeh Circle (also known as Gamal Abdul-Nasser Circle) to be held on Thursday March 24, 2011. Dubbed "The March 24 Youth," organizers and participants advocated a reformist agenda (see below) while affirming their loyalty to both the Jordanian nation-state and the Hashemites as its royal family. Initially organized through ...
Keep Reading »Five Questions on Jordan
In the shadow of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, social mobilizations and political developments in Jordan have prompted a significant amount of attention on the Kingdom. Below are the five most common questions I’ve received from both friends and reporters as well as composites of my responses. (1) Will we see in Jordan the type of upheaval we are witnessing in Tunisia or Egypt? To date, what has happened in Jordan does not compare to what is happening in other parts of the Arab world neither ...
Keep Reading »Protests and Economic Development in Jordan
For the second week in a row, a diverse array of Jordanians mobilized in the streets of Amman and other cities to protest economic conditions in Jordan. Similar to last week’s Jordanian Day of Anger, the recent protests were organized and followed through with despite government attempts to appease popular discontent in the days preceding the planned protests. Contrary to last week’s mobilizations which focused on rising prices, protesters this week were much more direct in decrying “policies that ...
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