Gag order issued in Jerash domestic assault case

AMMAN — The Criminal Court’s General Attorney office on Monday issued a gag order restricting the publication of any news related to the alleged assault by a 31-year-old man against his wife last week.

The November 6 incident occurred in Jerash, some 45 kilometres north of Amman, when the husband reportedly gouged the eyes of his wife, Fatmeh Abu Akleek, a mother of three children, following a domestic dispute. The victim, Fatmeh Abu Akleek, lost her vision as a result.

“The prosecution office decided to issue a gag order to protect the investigation procedures,” a senior judicial source told The Jordan Times.

The suspect was charged with attempted murder and will be tried at the Criminal Court in Amman.

The incident sent shockwaves across the Kingdom, with many describing it as a “barbaric and evil” incident.

The women’s movement organised a sit-in on Saturday under the theme “Enough” near the Prime Ministry, during which over 300 men and women called for better legal and social protection for women subjected to domestic violence.

Jerash MP Wafa Bani Mustafa also gathered the signatures of 16 deputies to call for reconsidering several clauses in the 2017 Domestic Violence Prevention Law (DVPL).

She told The Jordan Times that a number clauses in the DVPL “are not clear or do not protect victims of domestic violence as they should, and there is an urgent need for the government to make the necessary amendments to these clauses to stiffen the punishments and protect victims from the perpetrators in the right manner”.

Another important request is to cancel a clause that allows the victim’s family to drop charges against perpetrators, and this “applies in cases of domestic violence”, she said.

Also on Monday, Sisterhood is Global Institute (SIGI) issued a statement quoting Department of Statistics figures, which indicated that around 26 per cent of Jordanian women aged 15 to 49 are subjected to physical, emotional and sexual violence by their husbands.

The SIGI statement added that one in every 100 married men is subjected to physical violence by his wife. 

SIGI stressed that violence against women and girls in Jordan is a problem that “requires immediate action, since women and sometimes men are subjected to all forms of violence in society, but males usually have better alternatives to escape any form of violence they are subjected to”.  

The human rights organisation reiterated the urgent need to “admit that the phenomenon of domestic violence is on the rise in Jordan and that the government needs to take serious steps to address the problem and find the best means of protecting its citizens”, according to the statement.