Human Rights Watch to open regional office in Jordan

Amman
(File photo: Ameer Khalifeh/Jordan News)
AMMAN Human Rights Watch will open a regional office in Amman, Jordan, in February to increase its advocacy on important human rights issues in the Middle East and North Africa, Human Rights Watch said Sunday in a statement. اضافة اعلان

Human Rights Watch has operated a separate Jordanian country office in Amman since 2014.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade has approved Human Rights Watch’s application to establish the regional office in October 2022.

‘Positive step’“While most governments in the Middle East and North Africa are increasingly repressing dissent and impeding the human rights movement, Jordan has taken a positive step toward increasing human rights engagement across the region,” said Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
“At a time when civil society space is shrinking in many countries in the region, Jordan is taking a positive step in its engagement with global institutions.”
“Our country office in Jordan will continue to address the growing restrictions on fundamental rights in Jordan and lobby the Jordanian government for important human rights reforms.”

Human Rights Watch is a nonprofit, nongovernmental human rights organization with nearly 600 employees operating worldwide. The staff consists of human rights experts, including country experts, lawyers, journalists and academics from diverse backgrounds and over 80 nationalities.

In addition to the regional office in Jordan, Human Rights Watch also has offices for the Middle East and North Africa region in Tunisia and Lebanon.

Previous workEach year, Human Rights Watch publishes hundreds of reports, briefings, press releases, and opinion pieces on human rights conditions in 100 countries.

Recent inquiries include an investigation into Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and whether certain policies and practices in certain areas amount to apartheid and persecution, the responsibility of Lebanese officials for the August 2020 blast in Beirut, and the lack of accountability for killings and disappearances of protesters during and after the explosion 2019–2020 popular uprising in central and southern Iraq.

Human Rights Watch has published dozens of reports highlighting human rights abuses in Jordan for more than two decades, including a September 2022 report that documented the increasing restrictions on civil society space in the country.

Human Rights Watch is supported by contributions from individuals and foundations worldwide. It accepts neither directly nor indirectly state funds.

“At a time when civil society space is shrinking in many countries in the region, Jordan is taking a positive step in its engagement with global institutions,” Fakih said. “This is a positive step and we hope it will be accompanied by clear and concrete steps to address urgent and ongoing human rights issues.”


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