Women’s rights activists’ slogans draw ire on social media

AMMAN — Citizens on social media have criticised some slogans, what they considered as “against Jordanian traditions”, raised during a protest on Wednesday against the latest killing of a woman named Ahlam allegedly by her father for reasons related to “family honour”.

“The use of violence by male family members against women in their families is never justified, but to raise slogans that are clearly promoting a foreign agenda is also not justified,” wrote Ahram Sharif in a Facebook post in a comment on a photo of protesters holding a sign that read “abolish wilaya” (the guardianship system).

Sharif added: “We are protesting the use of violence, not family values.”

Following a comment regarding the same photo, Zeina Hamdan, a citizen, said on Facebook: “We want women rights’ fighters that represent us. We want women fighters that understand the values, traditions and religion of this society. We do not want Western-promoted traditions infiltrating us.”

As hundreds of citizens staged a sit-in near Parliament on Wednesday at 5pm to protest the killing of Ahlam, an “electronic storm” was also staged at the same time on social media by women’s rights activists to use the hashtag #Ahlam’s Screams to spread awareness about women’s issues in Jordan.

Women activists and social media users voiced their dismay over the incident and called on the government to introduce laws and adopt procedures that protect victims of domestic violence in Jordan.

Several petitions went viral over the past few days mostly calling on the government to adopt more procedures and policies that would better protect women, whose lives are in danger for reasons related to “family honour”.

However, hundreds of citizens also criticised these petitions. “Radical feminists use horrible incidents like this to introduce Western values in exchange for manipulative foreign support,” as put by Seyfuddin Rushdi, a user on Twitter.

“They are literally selling our honour for the dollar,” Rushdi added.

Citizens who criticised the slogans, the “online storm” and the petition said that while they “stand firm” on abolishing so-called honour crimes and domestic violence, “some slogans raised by radical feminist groups clearly want the fall of conservative values for destructive liberal views”, as put by Muna Sameh, another user on Twitter.