Protesters urge Jordan PM ouster

Fri Jul 1, 2011

Thousands of people have demonstrated across Jordan to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Marouf Bakhit and the dissolution of the lower house of parliament.

About 1,500 Jordanians took part in a demonstration outside Grand Husseini Mosque in central Amman after the Friday Prayers to express anger over the chamber's vote on Monday that cleared Bakhit of corruption charges in connection with a casino deal in 2007, DPA reported.

The protesters chanted “Down with Bakhit and his gambling government. A dishonest broker cannot protect the country."

“The casino government should go. No to the casino parliament,” read one of the banners carried by the demonstrators.

“This house should be dissolved because it provides a cover-up for corrupts," Murad Adayleh, a senior member of the Islamic Action Front (IAF), Jordan's main opposition party, said.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people demonstrated in Tafileh, situated 180 kilometers (111 miles) south of Amman, and called for the ouster of Bakhit's government.

Protest rallies were reported in the cities of Maan, Karak and Irbid, where participants demanded the “sacking of government and dissolution of parliament.”

On Monday, Jordan's lower house of parliament cleared Bakhit despite a parliamentary committee report which has found the premier's role in a suspected graft case about a multi-million-dollar deal that his government singed with a British-based company to build a casino in the Muslim state between 2005 and 2007.

At least three Jordanian lawmakers have resigned in protest to the parliament's decision.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/187097.html.