Activists ‘dismayed’ by Jordanian delegation’s endorsements at UPR

AMMAN — Activists on Wednesday expressed their dismay over Jordan’s recent endorsement of recommendations made by the UN’s Human Rights Council (UNHRC) at the Kingdom’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) last week, saying it “fell short of their expectations”.

On Tuesday, the Kingdom endorsed 131 recommendations out of 226 and decided to refer 21 recommendations for further study, while the country has been informed of the remaining 74.

The recommendations made by the UNHRC during Jordan’s third UPR focused mainly on three pillars: gender equality and raising women’s representation, freedom of expression and the Cybercrimes Law and suspending capital punishment, with the aim of abolishing it in the future.

The council also recommended prohibiting underage marriage, and the exceptions stipulated for it in the law, guaranteeing rights for children of Jordanian women married to non-Jordanians and empowering people with disabilities, as well as putting an end to torture and guaranteeing fair trials in cases where torture is claimed.

“We are not content with the UPR meeting’s outcome starting with how the national report was drafted since we were not included in the final process despite having been cooperating with government officials for the past three years,” said Director of the Phenix Centre for Economic and Informatics Studies Ahmad Awad.

Awad, who is the spokesperson of a national coalition comprised of  28 local NGOs titled “The Jordanian Societies Coalition to Follow Up on the UPR Results”, charged that the “government accepted only 58 per cent of our recommendations”.

“We felt that the government delegation was trying to polish a nice image of Jordan by wrongly portraying a positive image of the human rights and freedom status in Jordan,” Awad told The Jordan Times.

Arab Women Organisation Programme Director Laila Naffa also expressed her dismay with the outcome of the UPR meeting in Geneva.

“What happened was a real tragedy for gender equality in Jordan, because most of the recommendations related to women and children were placed in the ‘informed section’ by the government,” Naffa told The Jordan Times, referring to issues repeatedly addressed by the civil society such as allowing exceptions for child marriage “which we strongly advocated against”.

“The government also put aside pressing issues such as our demand to allow Jordanian women married to non-Jordanians to pass on their citizenship to their children and including the word ‘gender’ in Article 6 of the Constitution, which has been one of our major demands over the years,” Naffa added.

Article 6 of the Jordanian Constitution stipulates that Jordanians are equal before the law, regardless of their ethnicity, language or religion.
Women groups have attempted to push the government to insert the word “gender” in the provision to ban any discrimination on that basis, but their demands were rejected by the government.

“The disappointment is because, four years ago, the government pledged to give the nationality to children of Jordanian women married to non-Jordanians but they did not abide by their pledges,” Naffa stated. 

Director of the Change Academy for Democratic Development and Human Rights, lawyer Kamal Mashreqi, said he was hopeful that the government would take into consideration the 21 recommendations and the 74 points listed under the section “informed” in the near future.

“It is unfortunate that the government disregarded many of the important points such as abolishing the death penalty, matters related to migrant workers rights, administrative detention along with several issues that need to be addressed by the government,” Mashreqi told The Jordan Times.

During the meeting with the council in Geneva, the government delegation pledged to begin working on implementing the approved recommendations by incorporating them into state programmes and plans.

The delegation also said the Kingdom would continue promoting human rights with a methodology related to legislation, policies and practices and also through the national comprehensive human rights plan.

Mashreqi said “the civil society will continue to encourage the government to accept most of the 21 recommendations the government pledged to study by March 2019”.

Awad and Naffa were more vocal, saying that the civil society will continue “to press the government to improve the freedom of expression, women’s rights, and the right of assembly, combating torture and other pressing issues that relates to freedoms and human rights in Jordan”.