GENEVA – The Geneva Council for Rights and Liberties (GCRL) condemns the Jordanian security forces’ repression and dispersal of peaceful assemblies and the arrest of dozens of participants across the Kingdom.
In the early morning hours of Wednesday, March 24, the Jordanian security officers have deployed intensively in various neighborhoods where calls for peaceful assembly were launched by the March 24 movement, Geneva Council said.
The Jordanian security officers closed many roads in the Jordanian capital, Amman, and the governorates of Karak, Irbid, and Madaba, to prevent the demonstrators from gathering and participating in peaceful assemblies.
Security forces deployed in the city of Irbid and prevented anyone from reaching the sit-in, and closed all roads leading to the governorate. The Ajloun area in Amman also witnessed intense security deployment, where the police prevented citizens from gathering and arrested dozens of them. Peaceful protests against corruption were also prevented in Al-Dakhliya roundabout in the capital Amman and several axes in Karak, Madaba, and Mafraq. Activists and popular movements on Wednesday issued calls for peaceful protests to mark the anniversary of the sit-in of March 24, 2011, carried out by the Popular Movement at the height of what was known as the “Arab Spring revolutions.”
The Geneva Council expresses its grave concern over the Jordanian authorities’ systematic oppression of peaceful gatherings in violation of domestic and international obligations.
In early January, Jordanian security forces prevented teachers from gathering to protest the forced early retirement.
Protests that erupted across the country after oxygen ran out at a state hospital leading to the deaths of at least six COVID-19 patients, had been also faced with repression amid a record high number of cases of Covid-19.
GCRL notes that the Jordanian authorities are using the state of emergency imposed to confront the Corona pandemic to suppress freedoms and prevent peaceful assembly and expression of freedom of opinion.
The Geneva Council calls on the Jordanian authorities to abide by international human rights standards that guarantee the right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression and to immediately release the detainees.
