Balqa University protest ends after MPs’ intervention

AMMAN — A protest at Balqa Applied University ended on Thursday after intervention by MPs, according to the National Coalition for Reform. The protest began on Tuesday to denounce a technological engineering faculty decision to expel three students and issue a warning to a fourth. 

The MPs’ intervention started on Wednesday when deputies met with ministers of higher education and interior Adel Tweisi and Ghaleb Zu’bi and student representatives from the faculty, agreeing to suspend the faculty’s punitive decisions.

They also agreed that students should suspend the protest and that the expelled students should issue written objections to the faculty’s punishments. The parliamentary intervention came after the faculty deanship failed to solve the issue and some protesters were reportedly hit by sticks and stones by “masked, anonymous people”, the coalition said.