Jordanians rally for prisoners release

Wed Mar 2, 2011

Hundreds of people have staged a rally in Jordan's capital, Amman, to call for the release of over eighty political prisoners.

About 400 people took to the streets to protest as 27 inmates launched a hunger strike.

The anti-government protesters chanted slogans and held posters in front of the Grand Husseini Mosque in central Amman to urge King Abdullah to release their jailed relatives held at Swaqa prison, 50 kilometers south of the capital.

"The place of those who fight the Zionists should not be jail," read one slogan on a poster, in reference to those who are jailed for plotting attacks against Israeli targets.

Jordan was the second Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel after Egypt, and shares a border with both Israel and the occupied West Bank.

This is while international and local human rights organizations, as well as the opposition, have urged the Jordan's government to reform the country's prisons.

They have also called on the authorities to ban torture and protect prisoners' rights.

Thousands of members of Jordan's Islamic Action Front, and supporters of major political parties have rallied for reforms in recent weeks.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/167767.html.