Officials pledge to include NCHR comments into human rights recommendations

AMMAN — State Minister for Legal Affairs Bisher Khasawneh on Tuesday reiterated the Kingdom’s commitment towards human rights and basic freedoms.

“The Kingdom also welcomes all the local and international organisations’ remarks regarding the status of human rights and takes them seriously,” Khasawneh said. 

Khasawneh, who was deputising for Prime Minister Hani Mulki, made the pledges during a meeting that included members of the legislative, legal and implementing government agencies, as well as members of the governmental team for human rights formed back in 2014.

The event was organised by the office of Basel Tarawneh, the government coordinator for human rights.  

Tarawneh said that the meeting also aimed to discuss the recommendations made by the National Centre for Human Rights (NCHR) report, which was presented last month to His Majesty King Abdullah, relevant government institutes, as well as Parliament.

“My office will collect all the recommendations based on the NCHR’s comments and will include them into a report to be prepared soon,” Tarawneh told the gathering at the Royal Cultural Centre.  

He emphasised that the Kingdom’s achievements in regards to human rights is improving “thanks to the strong political will represented by His Majesty King Abdullah”.

Meanwhile, Second Deputy Speaker at the Lower House MP Suleiman Zaben and senator and former justice minister, Bassam Talhouni, both pledged to carefully examine the NCHR comments and “attempt to adopt its recommendations”.

“We should protect the Jordanian state by ensuring the protection of the rights and freedoms of its citizens,” Zaben said.

Talhouni added: “We are taking the NCHR’s report seriously and will look into ways of ensuring that its comments will be adopted by the relevant authorities.”

But Jordanian National Commission for Women Secretary General Salam Nims had a different opinion regarding the status of human rights in Jordan.

“I believe that public freedoms are declining and we are unable to perform many of our activities because the civil society is sometimes being banned from holding activities by the government,” Nims told the gathering.

Banning activities for the civil society, Nims continued, “basically means restricting activities on the women’s movement in Jordan as well”.