On the Senate floor

Last week’s Senate meetings saw interesting debates on the new passport legislation and the list of crimes against the state that would fall within the jurisdiction of the State Security Court.

The legislation on passports was finally adopted, but only after disagreements among certain members of the Upper House of Parliament, where some voiced concern about the government’s inclination to provide passports to foreigners, in exceptional situations, for humanitarian reasons, which prompted one senator to suggest that at the rate passports are given to foreigners, very soon Jordanians would end up becoming a minority in their own country.

The rule of thumb internationally is that passports are given only to citizens, and foreign residents may be provided with laissez-passers for humanitarian and other imperative reasons.

Whatever the case, going to the extent of claiming that Jordanians could become a minority in their own country because a few passports are issued to certain individuals in exceptional cases is a dangerous exaggeration.

How can six million Jordanians become a minority if some tens of passports are given to other nationals?

Regarding the demand by some senators that acts against Israeli occupation be excluded from the category of crimes that fall under the mandate of the State Security Court, it should be clear that what the law in question deals with is crimes against Jordanian security, and this has nothing to do with the struggle to liberate the West Bank from Israeli occupation. Clearly two different issues.

The senators’ deliberations are a good way to learn a few things about certain topics and should be a lesson, for many, in how to properly understand issues and not to mislead the citizenry based on hearsay or imagined realities.