Press Release Statement June 2009

Press Release Statement

08 June 2009

Amman 

The Amman Center for Human Rights Studies [ACHRS] would like to remind the Jordanian government that it should respect the recommendations made by civil society organizations submitted on the periphery of the meeting held for the comprehensive review of human rights in Jordan. The ACHRS would also like to call on the government not to acquiesce to pressures to take back its decision regarding the withdrawal of reservations to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women [CESAW], and to remain signatories to the Convention.

The ACHRS would like to announce that together with a group of Jordanian civil society organizations, they have submitted a report to the UN Human Rights Commission on the eve of the UNHRC (United Nations Human Rights Council) discussion on Jordan‘s UPR process. The review will consider the universal review process which the ACHRS took part in at the UNHRC three months ago, in February 2009. The report on human rights standards in Jordan submitted for the UPR pointed out that the human rights situation is retreating insofar as public liberties, such as the freedom to gather, the freedom to form societies and associations, the freedom to monitor elections, and the general freedoms of participation in public life. Moreover, infringement on the rights of the juvenile delinquents continues while the rights of the detained persons continued to be violated. To date, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has also continued to display reservations on some provisions of the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women [CEDAW].

At the same time, the report noted that some progress was made in Jordan in the field of human rights in 2007 and 2008, particularly on matters pertaining to women’s rights in that the Parliament has finally endorsed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW]. The convention was published in the Official Gazette with three reservations on it. A new law on family violence was also approved. Nonetheless, perpetrators of murder within the family, called crimes of honor, which are committed against women and girls, are not subject to trial as common criminals, but they benefit from an excuse that entails a lighter sentence passed against them.

We can sense from the media that there are some positive trends made by the Jordanian government, such as lifting its reservations earlier placed on one of the paragraphs of Article 15 of the Convention while keeping the reservations on others. The new government proposal for the amended Penal Code excluded some conditions in which the death penalty was applied.  Nonetheless, the constructive trends, particularly those pertaining to the lifting of the reservations, were met with a fierce attack by societal forces that refused to accept women’s rights and have gone as far as demanding the government to pull out of the CEDAW Convention.

We want to express our extreme concern over such demands made by societal forces which should have called for the respect of all human rights conventions. We want to request the government to go ahead in respecting the international conventions on human rights and in removing all the reservations placed on these conventions. We also want to call on the government to accede to the additional protocols appended to these conventions. Moreover, we want to remind the government with the following recommendations that were contained in the report submitted by the Jordanian civil society organizations to the Committee for the Comprehensive Review of the report of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan:

1-              Full endorsement of the CEDAW Convention, withdrawal of the reservations displayed on three articles in the convention, and signing the additional protocol of the CEDAW Convention.

2-              Supporting the National Committee for Women’s Affairs in its capacity as the supervising body and the instrument entrusted with the enforcement of the CEDAW Convention.

3-              Raising the age of criminal liability to 12 years old and keeping the children within their own communities. If they are arrested, they should keep their contacts with their families.

4-              Creation of a specialized judiciary, security services and special prosecution for the issues of the adolescents and taking the necessary measures to expeditiously make decisions on adolescents’ issues.

5-              Devising non-arrest measures, creating an expanded system to serve as an alternative for prison penalties, and allowing adolescents to enjoy their rights to education, work, training, communicating with the outside world, and integrating with society.

6-              The amended Electoral Law of 2003 should be amended again in a way that guarantees its compatibility with the international criteria pertaining to elections, particularly the formation of an independent election committee and the review of the distribution of seats to the electoral constituencies in the manner that can guarantee fairness in the distribution of seats commensurate with the population.

7-              The transparency of elections should be strengthened by allowing the local observation teams to watch the elections and to make their remarks concerning all the phases of the electoral process in view of the fact that reports on watching the elections can strengthen confidence in the results of the elections.

8-              Efforts should be made to strengthen women’s bids to access parliament by increasing the women’s quota to 30 per cent of the members of parliament, provided that this rate should be based on proportionate representation and that the shares of minorities should be allocated by the electoral constituencies.

9-              Amending the laws of societies and congregations to be consistent with international criteria on the right to peaceful organization and congregation.

10-          Submitting the government’s periodic reports to the contractual committees of the various international conventions endorsed by Jordan, particularly the convention against torture.