Jordan criticised for jailing lawmakers
“Expressing condolences to the family of a dead man, however murderous he might be, is not a crime,” Sarah Leah Whitson, director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division, said in a statement.
The lawmakers, members of Jordan’s largest opposition group, visited al-Zarqawi’s family home in Zarqa, 17 miles northeast of Amman, on June 9, two days after the al-Qaida leader in Iraq was killed in a US airstrike. One of the legislators, Mohammed Abu Fares, described al-Zarqawi as a “martyr”. Abu Fares and three others — Jaafar al-Hourani, Ali Abu Sukkar and Ibrahim al-Mashwakhi — were arrested two days later and charged with “instigating sectarian strike” and “fuelling national discord”. They remain jailed, serving 15-day detention orders.
