AMMAN — Activists on social media reacted
with anger as a video circulated purportedly showing a bulldozer smashing a
cart used by a young man to collect and
sell cardboard boxes at the Central Green Market in south Amman.
اضافة اعلان
Amman Mayor Youssef Al-Shawarbeh “took action”
by removing the director of market, Anas Mahadeen, and transferring him to the
post of depurty city manager at the headquarters of
Amman Greater Municipality
(GAM), and replacing him with another official, according to an official letter
seen by
Jordan News, a decision that was perceived by the public as a “promotion”
rather than a penalty.
GAM spokesperson, Nasser Al-Rahamneh,
said that immediately after municipal officials saw the video, which initially
identified the street vendor mistakingly as a vegetable and fruit vendor, the
mayor took action “because it was an unacceptable conduct” on the part of the
market municipal managers. The right measure was to confidcate the cart, he
said, noting that GAM “deals with street vendors from a humanitarian
perspective.”
Jordan News contacted the vendor,
Osama Abu Sbeitan, 21, who is an Arabic student at
Al-Balqaa Applied University. He collects the cardboards and sells them, and at the same time, he
gathers the vegetable and fruit waste for three sheep the family keeps at home
and benefits from their milk to feed 11 members.
The cart, which was in the parking
lot of the central market, was the only source of income for the Abu Sbeitans,
who live in Khreibet Al-Souq, the same area where the GAM-run green market is
located.
Osama told
Jordan News over the
phone that he was away for minutes to get some tea, and he came back and found
that the source of his and his family’s livelihood was crushed by the
bulldozer.
“I wept, unable to speak when I saw
it. My father has worked on this same cart for 16 years.”
What added insult to injury is that
at the time he was watching the fate of his cart, municipal officials were
laughing and joking about it, the young Abu Sbeitan said.
Earlier in the day, he wrote on his
Facebook page: “I am a good writer and a book worm. Today I was speechless.”
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