Jordan forced to get serious about human rights!

I liked this very much. Our government has put itself in deep water. In its desire to get elected in each and every committee in the UN Jordan was finally elected as a member of the UN Committee on Human Rights. This is a prestigious position, where the government can use in its promotional campaign outside Jordan, but there is a price the government must pay.

According to UN rules, any country that gets elected for this position must ratify all the UN related human rights conventions. Of course Jordan has signed and ratified almost every international convention imaginable, but have not ratified them nationally through the parliament and then getting them published in the official gazzette where they become "really enforced" as national laws used in the national courts.

Jordan must now ratify the package of six highly liberal human rights conventions: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Convention Against Torture, Anti-Racism Agreement, as well as the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

These convention include some articles and provisions that are very democratic and liberal and will shock our conservative parliament. I am afraid however, that the parliament will not accept those treaties and will consider them "zionest western infiltration of our Arab and Islamic ethics".

All human rights advocates in Jordan have been calling for the government to ratify those conventions for so many years, but any movement has not occured untill the election of Jorda in that UN committee. This is why I hate to say that the "reform from inside" slogan is a fake one, and any reform to our politics and culture cannot be acheived if not enforced from outside.