Human Rights Watch urges Jordan to stop revoking citizenships

01/02/2010

By Reuters

Tags: Israel News, Palestinians

Human Rights Watch report finds that thousands of Jordanians of Palestinian origin have had their civil rights infringed upon.

Human Rights Watch called on Jordan on Monday to stop stripping its citizens of Palestinian origin of their nationality, saying that thousands were threatened by arbitrary steps that deprived them of basic civil rights.

The New York-based lobby group said that between 2004 and 2008 alone more than 2,700 of Jordanian citizens of Palestinian origin had been victims of random administrative moves taken without warning, in violation of the country's nationality law.

"Jordan is playing politics with the basic rights of thousands of its citizens," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, in a statement released on the launch of the 60-page report in Amman.

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"Officials are denying entire families the ability to lead normal lives with the sense of security that most citizens of a country take for granted," she added.

Those deprived of their nationality cannot own property, have access to education or take part in public life, HRW said in its report titled "Stateless Again: Palestinian-origin Jordanians deprived of their nationality."

Jordanians of Palestinian origin who settled after the creation of Israel in 1948 have become a majority in the country of over 6 million.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1146737.html