Teachers in Jordan are asking for fair pay. Instead, the government launched a violent crackdown
The teachers' union has long been a thorn in the government's side. [Getty]
Date of publication: 14 August, 2020
Jordan has closed the teachers' union and arrested dozens of members to quell
recent protests. But the crackdown on civic dissent could come at a cost.
Jordan has been shaken by mass protests in
recent weeks as teachers have taken to the streets to protest a government
decision to shut down their syndicate and close its headquarters in Amman.
Demonstrations erupted a week after the attorney general's decision on 25 July
to close the teachers' union and
arrest its acting chairman Nasser Nawasreh and all 13 board members, who were
questioned on "criminal and corruption charges," according to local
media
Syndicate members provided lists of dozens of names of other members of the
union arrested by police to Human Rights Watch, in an indication of a mass crackdown.
Unrest first emerged this year after the government failed to honour a 2019 agreement for a rise in wages.
The government and the union had reached the deal after a month-long strike
last year over salaries.
Public sector salaries have instead been frozen as Jordan grapples with the
economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.
Nearly 140,000 teachers are members of the syndicate, which was founded in 2011
and represents one of very few independent labour unions in the country. While
the government initially moved to close the union, Jordan's education minister
Tayseer al-Nuaimi later formed a temporary committee to lead the syndicate.
Many have suggested that such a move is designed to allow the state to gain
full control over a rebellious labour
union that had long been a thorn in the government's side since its
foundation.
Silencing the opposition
As governments across the world struggle to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 on
jobs and industry, one could question the timing of the demands by the
teachers' union.
But according to Sara Kayyali, a researcher in the Middle East and North Africa
division at Human Right Watch, the government's response has been draconian and
a clear violation of the civic rights of Jordanian citizens.
"Instead of continuing negotiations, and setting a plan together with the
union, what the Jordanian authorities did – in clear government overreach – was
raid their offices across the country, arrest their members and shutter one of
the few remaining institutions in Jordan," she told The New Arab.
Adam Coogle, deputy director with the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch, says the closure of offices and mass arrests of labour union leaders have effectively put an end to one of the only democratic and independent institutions in the country.
Legal experts have also disputed the government's
decision, citing a lack of
legal basis for the shutdown. "The group's board can only be dissolved by
a two-thirds vote of the members of its central committee or by judicial
order," HRW said. But under Jordanian law, "the Attorney General is
not empowered to make judicial orders."
The move, according to Kayyali, has clearly placed the union
under the government's influence and makes it less likely that there will be
any potential for the kind of collective mobilising seen in 2019.
The government has also issued a gag order on all media coverage of protests by
the country's teachers, with the ensuing arrests of several journalists.
Reporters Without Borders has strongly condemned the
government's actions, saying that "these measures obstruct the right to
news and information."
People are in the streets for their livelihoods. So long as the government
fails to directly engage citizens on their demands, the potential for unrest
will always be there and may even amplify
Several journalists who attempted to report on the protests were reportedly
arrested, while NetBlocks, an NGO
that monitors the Internet, said that Internet speeds had been significantly
reduced and Facebook Live video streaming features were restricted when
protests were taking place.
'Islamist agenda' as an excuse
The government has partly justified its actions by accusing syndicate members of having an "Islamist" agenda and links with the Muslim Brotherhood. Earlier this summer, the Court of Cassation dissolved the country's branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Jordan had tolerated the group's political arm for decades, but relations deteriorated after the brotherhood's involvement in Arab Spring protests in 2011.
In Coogle's opinion, the alleged political affiliation of the members of the
teachers' syndicate is not a justification for the authorities' arbitrary
closure of the teachers' association and arrest of its members. Jordan appears
to have brazenly flouted its own laws as well as its human rights obligations
in carrying out these arbitrary actions.
"If individual members of the syndicate have committed criminal offenses
they can be investigated and charged appropriately, but it must be a clear and
fair legal process rather than political retaliation and repression," he
told The New Arab.
Large-scale unrest
With political and social unrest on the rise, the government's move to silence the independent union may lead to large-scale protests, especially following harsh measures to block any opposition or dissent, which included the arrest of activists over expressing their disagreement on social media.
According to Murad Adailah, leader of Islamic Action Front, the largest
opposition party in the country, the crackdown on the union would "only
further aggravate political tensions by the government at a time people are
choked under hard economic conditions."
Jordanian authorities mistakenly think that shows of power, gag orders and
clamping down on protests will make people cease their demands, HRW's Kayyali
says, but those are precisely the conditions that led them to the streets in
the first place.
"People are in the streets for their livelihoods. So long as the
government fails to directly engage citizens on their demands, the potential
for unrest will always be there and may even amplify," she added.
Stasa Salacanin is a freelance journalist who has written extensively on Middle
Eastern affairs, trade and political relations, Syria and Yemen, and terrorism
and defence
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