Salafi Detainees Abused in Jordanian Prisons ~ lawyer

2011-09-28

By Amal Ghabayen

AMMONNEWS – Jordan's special military tribunal has repeatedly wronged and been gravely unjust towards members of Salafi Islamist movements, a legal expert on Islamist movements said on Tuesday.

Musa al-Abdullat, an attorney defending the cases of over 100 Salafists has spoken out against the State Security Court’s oppression.

Abdullat said during a press conference Tuesday evening that Salafists have faced grave violations of human rights, torture, and indignity, particularly those tried in the aftermath of the Zarqa clashes in April.

In exposing the double-standards practiced by the State Security Court (SSC), Abdullat indicated that SSC has been trying the Salafists on charges of committing violence and inciting strife, while it has failed to arrest or bring any of the 'thugs' involved in violence against protestors throughout the kingdom since the beginning of the year to trial.

He added that the testimony of a number of the security officers in the SSC's court sessions supported the Salafis and contradicted other testimonials which were at odds with what was said before the public prosecutor since the investigation.

Al-Abdallat said that some of the Salafis had been arrested from their homes without an arrest warrant or inspection, revealing that a number of the security personnel had raided their homes ‘savagely’ and some of them had tampered with belongings within houses.

Al-Abdallat displayed video clips of the Zarqa events that in his view pointed to the innocence of the Salafis of terrorist charges.

On his part, the Chairman of the Popular Committee for Defending Detainees Muhammad al-Hadid claimed that Salafi detainees had been beaten and tortured, and indicated that they had been undressed and photographed inside prisons by members of the Public Security Department.

Lawyer, Majid al-Fatawi, spoke of the suffering of the families during the court cases since most of them were not allowed to attend, and they were forbidden from sitting under the canopy in front of the prison, even though most of them came from provinces far from Amman.

Al-Fatawi said that excessive violence had been used to arrest the detainees and firearms employed to open the doors of houses. Security personnel had also, according to al-Fatawi, entered bedrooms without respecting the sanctity and privacy of homes.

The spokesperson for the Committee, Wissam al-Amush, also known as ‘Abu Abida,’ noted that 150 families were being punished and are suffering from the detention of their sons, adding that what happened in Zarqa was no more excessive than what happened at the Interior Ministry Circle in March, or the Nakhil Square in July.

He continued that most of what happened in Zarqa was no more than a brawl between the Salafis and the ‘thugs’, saying they refused to divide people into first-class and second-class citizens, since such a division would only bring disarray and tension.

Source: Ammon News.
Link: http://en.ammonnews.net/article.aspx?articleNO=13919.