To Protest Detention of Two Citizens

Jordan Recalls Envoy to Occupied Territories

Date: 30 October 2019 - 22:02

News ID: ۷۲۱۶۷

AMMAN (Dispatches) – Jordan recalled its ambassador to the Israeli-occupied territories for consultations in protest over the occupying regime’s refusal to heed its demands to release two citizens it said were illegally detained for months without charges, the kingdom's foreign minister says.
Ayman Safadi said in a tweet he held the Zionist regime responsible for the lives of Hiba Labadi and Abdul Rahman Miri whose "health conditions have severely deteriorated." He added that recalling the envoy was a first step but did not elaborate.
Labadi, 24, went on a hunger strike and was hospitalized after her health deteriorated. She was arrested in August after crossing to the West Bank to attend a family wedding and so far has not been indicted.
Safadi said the regime’s detention of both citizens was "illegal" and vowed his country would "take all necessary legal and diplomatic measures to ensure their safe return home."
According to Labadi’s attorney, Raslan Mahajna, she is suspected of meeting with people affiliated to the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah during trips to Beirut both last year and early this year.
Mahajna added that Labadi often voices her views against the Zionist regime’s occupation of Palestinian territories on social media networks.
"She was interrogated intensively for 35 days, and in the end, there was no basis for indicting her, so she was slapped with an administrative detention order,” he said.
Labadi is reportedly being held at Kishon prison, also known as the al-Jalame detention center.
Arabic-language Arabi 21 online newspaper reported that Miri was arrested on September 2 as he was going to attend the wedding of a relative in the northern West Bank city of Nablus.
The 29-year-old man, a resident of the Abu al-Zayegan area in the central Jordanian city of Zarqa, had traveled with his mother through the King Hussein Bridge.
His family said they have not been able to contact him since his arrest, and have not been told the reason for his detention. Miri is said to be suffering from cancer. His relatives are concerned his medical condition will deteriorate in jail.
Jordan's relations with the Zionist regime have been strained in recent years and the kingdom, which is one of only two Arab states that have a "peace” treaty with the regime, fears Israel's possible annexation of territory in the occupied West Bank, where expansion of illegal settlement building over several decades has dimmed prospects of a future Palestinian state.