Changes to Public Gatherings Law key demand by opposition, activists

By Thameen Kheetan

AMMAN - When opposition groups and disgruntled activists took part over the past few weeks in peaceful demonstrations, policemen were distributing water and juice among protesters.

However, law enforcement personnel were entitled under the Public Gatherings Law to arrest participants for breaking a provision in a controversial law stipulating that organizers obtain permission from the concerned authorities ahead of the rally. Those breaking the law could have faced one to three months in prison or a fine, or both penalties.

Activists saw the authorities’ reaction as a sign of change, and recent developments indicate change is coming.

In the Letter of Designation to the new government last week, His Majesty King Abdullah named the law in question as part of the legislation governing civil action that should be revisited.

Prime Minister-designate Marouf Bakhit was quoted by lawmakers last week as saying that the prior permission is likely to be dropped.

In all cases, amendments to the Public Gatherings Law will remain a key demand by the spectra of the opposition and other activists, who criticize it as a tool to suppress the freedom of expression.

“We believe that this law contradicts the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression,” Islamic Action Front (IAF) Secretary General Hamzah Mansour told The Jordan Times last week.

He said Jordan should go back to the 1953 law, under which organizers of a public gathering only had to inform authorities 48 hours prior to the planned event, without the need to wait for permission.

Under the current legislation, an organizing party must apply for a governor’s permission to hold a sit-in or a demonstration three days in advance. The law does not require the governor to mention reasons behind any refusal.

But just as it dealt with the recent demonstrations, the government refrained from cracking down on demonstrators on several occasions over the past decade, such as during the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon and on Gaza in winter 2008/09.

Prior to last year’s Lower House elections, at least 10 leftist youth activists were detained while preparing for a sit-in in front of the Prime Ministry to call for boycotting the polls. A few days later, an unlicensed sit-in by the same group went on smoothly outside the Parliament.

Some activists have defied the law, including the National Campaign for Defending Students Rights (Thabahtoona), which maintains its policy of not seeking official blessings for its sit-ins in front of various public institutions. The group, however, prefers to go out in “symbolic” numbers to avoid possible confrontation with police, activists from the group said.

Mohammad Sneid, a day laborer who moved into the spotlight after leading a sequence of protests in which workers employed by the government were demanding rights, said: “How do you expect people to ask for permission to demand their own rights?”

Last year, Sneid was detained for 10 days then released on bail by the State Security Court for charges of illegal assembly and slandering the then-minister of agriculture Saeed Masri.

A lawmaker said the law contradicts the spirit of the age.

“Since the endorsement of this law, we have repeated that it doesn’t suit the era of democracy and freedom of expression,” MP Jamil Nimri, head of the Lower House National Guidance Committee, told The Jordan Times.

He added that the law in question is on the list of laws that will be discussed during the upcoming parliamentary session, expected this spring or summer.

Former prime minister Ali Abul Ragheb, whose Cabinet endorsed the Public Gatherings Law as temporary legislation in 2001 before being passed by the Parliament three years later, said the law was then necessary to curb violent incidents that accompanied rallies across Jordan in solidarity with the second Palestinian Intifada against the Israeli occupation.

In an interview with The Jordan Times on Tuesday, Abul Ragheb said his government faced a shortage in the number of policemen to secure the dozens of rallies in the capital and other cities at the times of the Intifada and the 2003 US-led war on Iraq.

He said authorities then felt an urgent need to “protect people’s interests and bring about security and order for all citizens”.

But the politician explained that “whoever implements the law has to take into consideration that the constitutional principle is in favor of allowing” people to assemble in public, adding that any official who “arbitrarily” applies the law has to be held accountable.

However, things have changed since then, said Abul Ragheb; a businessman and a former MP.

“If you ask me whether the current circumstances require amending this law… the answer is yes,” Abul Ragheb said. He stopped short of elaborating on the needed amendments.

The necessity of revising the law, according to Mustafa Rawashdeh, a key teacher activist, lies in the fact that the implementation of its provisions “depends on the mood of official concerned with enforcing it”.

6 February 2011

Source: The Jordan Times.
Link: http://jordantimes.com/?news=34217.