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Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood complains about crackdown
 Jordan's mainstream Muslim Brotherhood urged authorities on Tuesday to increase civil liberties, saying any clampdown after triple suicide bombings would only fuel religious extremism. Abdul Majid Thunaibat said the suicide bombers who killed 54 mostly Jordanian people on Wednesday were a product of a militancy flourishing in a climate of despair, disaffection and domestic repression which worsened in the region after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. "The way to counter extremist views is to allow more freedoms," said Thunaibat, whose party is the largest organized political movement in the kingdom and has borne the brunt of an erosion of civil liberties in recent years that rights groups say has suppressed dissent in workers' unions and mosques.Jordan's monarch said after the bombings the country would not turn into a police state but officials have privately warned that sweeping anti-terror legislation being discussed after the attacks could infringe even further the right of expression. Thunaibat whose political arm, the Islamic Action Front, is active in parliament, warned a heavy-handed stance by security could backfire. "The situation which the Middle East is going through is the one in which these extremist views have found fertile ground ⊠and so undisciplined security handling will not solve the situation ⊠it will only complicate things," he added. Thunaibat foresaw extremists gaining the upper hand from rising popular resentment and social tensions aggravated by undemocratic practices in most Arab states. "These totalitarian repressive regimes along with the American occupation of Iraq and confiscation of public freedoms and the crackdown on moderate Islamist movements are reasons behind the emergence of this extremist phenomenon," he said. Thunaibat urged an end to a ban on its preachers delivering sermons that has been in place since a crackdown after a 1994 peace treaty with Israel when clerics and imams were accused of violating a law that bars unlicensed mosque sermons. "We should give a chance for Islamic scholars who hold moderate views to explain the teachings of tolerant Islam to combat the phenomenon of extremism," Thunaibat said. This would prevent mosques being taken by religious extremists, said Thunaibat, whose movement The government has also put behind bars clerics who turn mosque halls into "political meeting rooms" to incite attacks on the government's pro-Western policies and whip up anti-U.S. sentiment that could encourage violence. Jordan's climate of political liberalization before dissent was suppressed in the mid-nineties after protests over the peace treaty with Israel had brought the country stability. "The moderate Islamist movement has long been a safety valve against extremist ideas. If people are not allowed to vent their feelings they fall prey to extremist groups," Thunaibat said. Posted by: Dan Darling 2005-11-15 |
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