AMMAN: A Jordanian judge Sunday ordered the release of the teachers union’s 13 elected council members who were arrested a month ago for alleged graft, a judicial source said.
Authorities closed the union and arrested its leaders on July 25 after it had led a campaign for higher pay in the indebted kingdom whose economy is reeling from the coronavirus pandemic.
The government also imposed a gag order against publication of details of the prosecutor’s investigation into the case.
Teachers’ Association lawyer Bassam Freihat confirmed the release of the 13, including acting head of the union Nasser Nawasreh.
The lawyer told AFP they had completed a one-month detention period without the bail allowed by the judicial system.
“The court also decided to release a number of teachers who had been arrested during demonstrations” before and after the arrest of their leaders, Freihat said.
Neither the judicial source nor the lawyer were able to give further details or say whether the 13 would face further legal action.
But the union remained closed even as Jordan’s schools were due to reopen on September 1 and teachers returned to state-run schools on Sunday to prepare for the new term.
In July state prosecutor Hassan Abdallat ordered a two-year closure of the union’s headquarters, its branches and offices nationwide and the arrest of the 13-member union council.
They were accused of unspecified “financial violations” and questioned on criminal and corruption charges, state media reported at the time.
On Tuesday, Human Rights Watch said the gag order banning the media from covering the case was the “latest in a series of restrictions on press freedoms.”
At least two journalists were arrested for covering union protests and two others beaten, the watchdog said.
“Jordan’s shrinking space for journalists to operate reflects the country’s slide into repression,” said HRW’s deputy Middle East director Michael Page.
Jordan frees teachers’ union chiefs as schools to reopen
https://arab.news/vtxnt
Jordan frees teachers’ union chiefs as schools to reopen
- Authorities closed the union and arrested its leaders on July 25 after it had led a campaign for higher pay
- The government also imposed a gag order against publication of details of the prosecutor’s investigation into the case
Trump says Iran government change ‘best thing that could happen’
- US president's comments come after he ordered a second aircraft carrier to head to the Middle East
FORT BRAGG, United States: US President Donald Trump said a change of government in Iran would be the “best thing that could happen,” as he ordered a second aircraft carrier to head to the Middle East.
“Seems like that would be the best thing that could happen,” Trump told reporters at the Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina when a journalist asked if he wanted “regime change” in Iran.
“For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking. In the meantime, we’ve lost a lot of lives while they talk,” he told reporters.
Trump declined to say who he would want to take over in Iran from supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but he added that “there are people.”
He has previously backed off full-throated calls for a change of government in Iran, warning that it could cause chaos, although he has made threats toward Khamenei in the past.
Speaking earlier at the White House, Trump said that the USS Gerald R. Ford — the world’s largest warship — would be “leaving very soon” for the Middle East to up the pressure on Iran.
“In case we don’t make a deal, we’ll need it,” Trump said.
The giant vessel is currently in the Caribbean following the US overthrow of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro. Another carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, is one of 12 US ships already in the Middle East.
When Iran began its crackdown on protests last month — which rights groups say killed thousands — Trump initially said that the United States was “locked and loaded” to help demonstrators.
But he has recently focused his military threats on Tehran’s nuclear program, which US forces struck last July during Israel’s unprecedented 12-day war with Iran.
The protests have subsided for now but US-based Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last shah, urged international intervention to support the Iranian people.
“We are asking for a humanitarian intervention to prevent more innocent lives being killed in the process,” he told the Munich Security Conference.
It followed a call by the opposition leader, who has not returned to his country since before the revolution, for Iranians at home and abroad to continue demonstrations this weekend.
Iran and the United States, who have had no diplomatic relations since shortly after the revolution, held talks on the nuclear issue last week in Oman. No dates have been set for new talks yet.
The West fears the program is aimed at making a bomb, which Tehran denies.
The head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, said Friday that reaching an accord with Iran on inspections of its processing facilities was possible but “terribly difficult.”
Trump said after talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week that he wanted to continue talks with Iran, defying pressure from his key ally for a tougher stance.
The Israeli prime minister himself expressed skepticism at the quality of any agreement if it didn’t also cover Iran’s ballistic missiles and support for regional proxies.
According to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, 7,008 people, mostly protesters, were killed in the recent crackdown, although rights groups warn the toll is likely far higher.
More than 53,000 people have also been arrested, it added.
The Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) NGO said “hundreds” of people were facing charges linked to the protests that could see them sentenced to death.
Figures working within the Iranian system have also been arrested, with three politicians detained this week from the so-called reformist wing of Iranian politics supportive of President Masoud Pezeshkian.
The three — Azar Mansouri, Javad Emam and Ebrahim Asgharzadeh — were released on bail Thursday and Friday, their lawyer Hojjat Kermani told the ISNA news agency.
