Government threatens tough measures against Maan rioters

By Rana Husseini and Petra

AMMAN –– Riots erupted anew in the southern city of Maan Tuesday for the second day following the death of two people during a brawl involving workers in a water project in the desert governorate.

Meanwhile, the government warned that it would not be lenient with the “small group” who “took advantage of the incidents in Maan Governorate to destabilize the area and disturb the life of its residents”.

Speaking to the Jordan News Agency, Petra, and Jordan TV, Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Saad Hayel Srour said that authorities are following up on developments in Maan, stressing that at the time of his statement, the situation was “calm and stable”.

Srour said the Cabinet discussed the developments in the small southern town of about 60,000 and “expressed regret over the incidents and extended sympathies to the families of the victims of the heinous crime”.

Meanwhile, Public Security Department (PSD) Director Lt. General Hussein Majali on Tuesday stressed that his agency is committed to “enforcing state sovereignty and maintaining law and order”, according to Petra.

Chairing a security council meeting attended by Governor Ali Azzam and top officers at Maan PSD directorate yesterday, Majali said that the police will hunt and arrest “those who are proved to be involved in the riots”.

“Majali stressed at the meeting that the police will not allow the re-occurrence of violence, rioting and vandalism,” Petra quoted PSD Spokesperson Lt. Col. Mohammad Khatib as saying.

The violence in Maan, 220km south of Amman, started Monday following the killings, which occurred at a location of the Disi Water Conveyance Project in Shidiyeh in the governorate.

Angry mobs carried out arson attacks on governmental offices, private and public properties, shops, vehicles and burned tires to express their anger over the death of the two residents of the tribal town, officials and Maan residents said.

Reuters reported that the rioting Maanis were protesting authorities’ failure to arrest the killers in Monday’s incident, which reportedly involved town residents and bedouins from the village of Mreigha, south of Maan on the highway leading to Aqaba.

In his remarks to Petra and JTV, the interior minister said that the suspected killers were “identified”.

“Riots erupted again after the burial of the dead people and people destroyed and burned dozens of property in Maan city,” Khatib told The Jordan Times.

The police official told The Jordan Times that hooded men showered Maan Police Station with live rounds but no one was hurt.

Police “only responded by firing tear gas” to disperse the groups that attacked the station and private properties so as to minimize harm.

Khatib said extra Gendarme Forces were sent to Maan in a bid to control the situation and the PSD placed some roadblocks on the entrance of the city.

A student at Al Hussein University in Maan told The Jordan Times that a group of angry men destroyed several properties using gas cylinders and burning tires, which they used to block the roads.

“The angry youths were shouting that they do not believe in the system and that was why they were destroying public properties,” the 22-year-old witness, who declined to be identified, said.

Meanwhile, Petra reported that three people were injured in Tuesday’s riots, citing Maan Police Director Brigadier General Aref Wishah.

“Two people were listed in fair condition, while the third was listed in critical condition after they received bullets to different parts of their bodies,” the police chief was quoted as saying by Petra.

Khatib confirmed that police did not fire a single bullet towards any of the rioters and that the “injuries most probably happened because of the heavy firing by the rioters”.

Meanwhile, no violence was reported on the tribal outskirts of Maan, where the tribe to which the alleged killers, the Hweitat, resides.

On Monday, mobs from Mreigha closed the main road leading to Aqaba and Maan and attacked several cars.

Gendarme Forces had to intervene and open the road for traffic movement.

Petra reported that several people, who blocked the Mreigha road, were arrested by police.

5 January 2011

Source: The Jordan Times.
Link: http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=33187.