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For those living outside of Jordan and are interested in seeing the music video for the song Ya Amman, which was released to condemn the terrorist attacks in Jordan, here is the link. The link comes courtesy of Yazeed from the newly established blog Jordan First. Yazeed along with his brothers have been doing a good job of updating their blog with Jordan-centric posts. Keep it up guys! |
I just finished reading parts of the 2005 US State Department report on International Religious Freedom. The section on Jordan is quite long and detailed. The report focuses on the hot topic of conversion from Islam to Christianity:
There was no change in the status of respect for religious freedom during the reporting period. A convert from Islam to Christianity was detained on the orders of a Shari’a court in September 2004 and charged with apostasy. In November, the Amman Shari’a Court found him guilty of apostasy, stripped him of his civil rights, and annulled his marriage. A Shari’a appellate court upheld the conviction in January 2005. Members of unrecognized religious groups and converts from Islam face legal discrimination and bureaucratic difficulties in personal status cases. Converts from Islam additionally risk the loss of civil rights. There is no statute that expressly forbids proselytizing Muslims. However, Shari’a courts have the authority to prosecute proselytizers.
I blogged about this particular case one year ago, so my comments can be seen here. Other sections of the report discuss alleged discrimination against the Druze and Bahai communities in Jordan.
The Government does not recognize the Druze or Baha’i faiths as religions but does not prohibit their practice. The Druze face official discrimination but do not complain of social discrimination. Baha’is face both official and social discrimination. The Government does not record the bearer’s religion as Druze or Baha’i on national identity cards; Druze are listed as Muslim, and Baha’i do not have any religion officially listed.
All that said, I’m glad the report made mention of the fact that Christians in Jordan enjoy a very good status.
The generally amicable relationship among religions in society contributed to religious freedom. In general, Christians did not suffer discrimination. Christians held high-level government and private sector positions and were represented in the media and academia approximately in proportion to their presence in the general population
Read the entire report on Jordan here.
According to this Elaph article (Arabic), the smell of Mansaf on the streets of Paterson, New Jersey is so potent that it sticks to your clothes as you wander about … Sweet! Nothing beats that jameed aroma. The author of this article goes on to compare Paterson and its potent jameed perfume to that found amongst the streets of the Jordanian city of Karak. Jordanians do get around don’t they?
One of the blogs that I enjoy a great deal is Moorish Girl, a site maintained by Moroccan author Laila Lalami, who recently released her fist novel Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits.
In addition to providing reviews and book recommendations, every once in a while Moorish Girl gives away a book to the first person that responds after reading her "give-away" announcement. Last week, I won a book entitled Waking Up American. This was not my first time either, as last year I was also fortunate enough to win another of the Moorish Girl’s generous gifts. For those that enjoy reading fiction, I have to highly recommend Moorish Girl. Make sure to bookmark it and make it your daily read. And thanks again, Laila!
IRIN, the UN news agency, has a feature examining concerns over the anti–terror draft law in Jordan. The feature also tackles the issue of the growing Iraqi population in Jordan. Here is one highlight:
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has also expressed concern over the proposed law: "HRW will be even more concerned over the situation of the undocumented Iraqi population in Jordan who have no refugee status," Christoph Wilcke, researcher for HRW said from New York.
Since terrorist attacks in the coastal area of Aqaba last August, Jordan has been systematically expelled undocumented Iraqis from the country, back to Iraq’,according to Wilcke. "This is very worrying", he added, "because it goes against all human rights conventions … These people came to Jordan escaping the war and now they are being sent back there again."
Read the whole thing.
UPDATE: Here is the government response. Also make sure to read Nas’ post on the same topic.
In other Jordan-centric news, a Washington Post reporter visited Irbid and interviewed a Jordanian that joined the insurgency in Iraq. Also, Jordanian journalist and Fulbright Scholar Samer Abu Libdeh discusses the urgency for reform in Jordan after the attacks in a piece for the Washington Institute’s on-line publication.