Jordan’s King Abdullah orders end to parliamentary session

Jordan's King Abdullah ordered an end to the current parliamentary session on Monday, a day after the legislature removed a tribal deputy who called on his followers to defy the monarch's authority.

The King decreed to "dissolve the extra-ordinary parliamentary cycle starting from the 10th of June", the royal court said.

The royal decree does not dissolve the 130-member parliament, which started its four-year cycle in December 2020.

A translation of the order by Jordan's official news agency said that the king’s decision constitutes a “proroguing” of parliament – meaning the king exercised his authority to end sessions of the sitting parliament.

It was not immediately clear whether the move was procedural or specifically in response to the political episode that has rocked Jordan since the weekend.

Parliament convened a special meeting on Sunday in which it expelled Osama Al Ajarmeh, an MP from Naour, an urban and farming region just south of Amman.

Footage on social media on Saturday showed Mr Al Ajarmeh apparently making threatening remarks to his followers in Naour about the king and insulting the monarch.

In the footage Mr Al Ajarmeh is shown brandishing a sword and wearing a concealed gun holster.

Parliament Speaker Abdulmunem Awadat told the legislature on Sunday that Mr Al Ajarmeh was expelled after he made "insulting" comments about the king.

On Sunday, security forces confronted Mr Al Ajarmeh's supporters who had gathered in Naour, but mostly kept their distance as some of his followers fired guns in the air.

A resident of Naour told The National that the gatherings largely subsided on Monday, with security forces staying mostly on the edge of the region.

Lawlessness in the suburb and other areas on the outskirts of the capital has increased sharply in the past decade, as tribes that depend on the state for employment have seen these prospects diminish.

Jordan has been in recession since last year and unemployment is officially at a record 24 per cent.

In the past decade the state has curbed hiring, with the public sector and security forces mostly dominated by members of the tribes.

The tribes are concentrated in the centre and south of the country and also make up the majority of parliament.

Jordan’s Hashemite monarchs have depended on the tribes to consolidate power since Jordan was founded as the British protectorate of Transjordan 100 years ago.

A large proportion of the kingdom’s 10 million population, however, are of Palestinian origin.

A constitutional lawyer said the king’s decision to end the parliamentary cycle, which started in December, appeared more procedural than in relation to the episode involving Mr Al Ajarmeh.

He said parliament, which has little political power in Jordan, convened in December in an extraordinary cycle following elections during the coronavirus.
"The current cycle was about to end anyway" he said.

THE BIO

Age: 33

Favourite quote: “If you’re going through hell, keep going” Winston Churchill

Favourite breed of dog: All of them. I can’t possibly pick a favourite.

Favourite place in the UAE: The Stray Dogs Centre in Umm Al Quwain. It sounds predictable, but it honestly is my favourite place to spend time. Surrounded by hundreds of dogs that love you - what could possibly be better than that?

Favourite colour: All the colours that dogs come in

Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts

Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.

The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.

Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.

More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.

The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.

Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:

November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.

May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.

April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.

February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.

December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.

July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.

May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.

New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.