Two referred to security court for banned party ties

AMMAN — Mohammad Zarbeh and Mohammad Hadi have been referred to the State Security Court (SSC) for their active membership in the Islamic Liberation Party (Hizb Al Tahrir), a regional Islamist party banned in the Kingdom, security sources said.

According to Moussa Abdullat, defence attorney of the two Jordanian men, the state prosecutor moved to detain them for a 15-day period pending further investigation into their alleged “distribution of propaganda harmful to the state's ties to a foreign nation”, a criminal offence carrying up to seven years in prison under the Penal Code. 

The propaganda in question were reportedly party pamphlets calling for the overthrow of the Egyptian, Iraqi and Syrian governments to pave the way for the formation of an Islamic caliphate which the two Islamists allegedly distributed outside an Amman mosque in late June.

The arrests are part of a widening crackdown on the banned party, under which eight members have been detained over the last three months and a party leader was handed a prison sentence. 

In June, the SSC sentenced Medhat Marar, a senior member of the party's Jordan branch, to six months in prison for “membership of an illegal organisation” for his participation in a regional party conference in Khartoum, Sudan. 

A regional Islamist political movement calling for the return of the Islamic caliphate, the Islamic Liberation Party is banned in Jordan for its calls to overthrow existing Arab governments and monarchies.