AMMAN — Students at a Jordanian university took to
social media over the weekend to share a professor’s alleged sexual harassment
of students.
Using the hashtag “techno harasser”, referring to
the
Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST), students fired off
thousands of tweets, many of which included alleged chat logs between students
and the professor.
اضافة اعلان
One JUST student said that she started the social
media campaign to share testimonies, voice recordings, and texts that other
students have shared with her.
“I had no idea how big the impact ... would be, nor
the number of testimonies and records I have personally received,” she told
Jordan
News.
Another student, who spoke to
Jordan News on
condition of anonymity, said she had been the victim of the professor’s
harassment in her first year at university.
She said the professor had asked her to go to his
office to discuss her exam results. She had to take a bus home, and so did her
best to hurry the conversation along but the professor “kept changing the
subject”.
“He offered that I go with him to
Amman so no one
would recognize us,” she said. “I was shocked and did not know what was
happening, but knew that it was wrong, especially after he tried to hold my
hand.”
“I felt disgusted and ashamed when I left his
office,” she said, adding that she had “never spoken of this with anyone”.
In another incident, text messages dated July 2018,
obtained by
Jordan News, shows a Facebook account that appears to belong
to the professor messaging a student, in which he declares his “pure” love for
her and repeatedly invites her to join him after school hours and off-campus.
In one exchange the student explicitly told him that
his advances made her “uncomfortable”, to no avail.
The student told
Jordan News that she was
worried that “if I did not reply to his messages, he would fail me.”
“I am also alone (in Jordan) and was afraid that he
would do something to harm me.”
The student is one of six who have filed on official
complaint with the university.
In an interview with
Jordan News, professor
Ahmad Alsaad said that he had never faced such complaints throughout his 30
years of teaching. He said that certain students hold grudges after being
suspended from his class or after getting caught cheating on an exam.
Alsaad said the chat logs posted on social media
were fabricated and that he would be filing a complaint with the
Cyber Crime Unit, describing the social media campaign as character assassination.
“They created fake accounts in my name and exposed
my number online,” he alleged. “My Facebook account was also hacked.”
The professor said he has received numerous calls
from his colleagues in “support”.
“These allegations have affected my family,” he
said, adding that he was in the process of hiring a lawyer to press charges
against “everyone who tried to destroy my reputation”.
Maram Qaddorah, who studied under the professor in
2012, told
Jordan News that she never witnessed any behavior consistent
with the accusations and that she had visited his office in the past.
“It was entirely normal at the professor’s office;
we discussed my grades and nothing else,” she said.
“The professor is known for his ethics and I have
never noticed any suspicious behavior,” Qaddorah said.
In comments to
Jordan News, the university’s
spokesperson, Ra’d Al-Tal said that the university had formed a committee
Saturday, the same day allegations surfaced, and opened an investigation into
the claims of harassment.
He stressed that the investigation would be
impartial, and that, if the allegations prove to be true, the consequences
could range from a “partial suspension to termination,” depending on the
evidence.
The spokesperson stressed that the university is
taking the issue seriously and that students who come forward will not be
singled out.
Jordan News spoke to lawyer and activist Nour
Al-Imam, who said that allegations of harassment are difficult to prove and
therefore harder to prosecute, but that it should not deter people coming
forward and standing up for themselves.
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