AMMAN: King Abdullah II of Jordan has as part of his reform initiatives set up a constitutional court comprising nine members, according to a royal decree published yesterday.
The court, the first of its kind in the kingdom, will be the only one authorised to verify that laws comply with the constitution, the decree states.
It is chaired by Taher Hekmat, a legal expert who heads the board of directors of the National Centre for Human Rights. He and other members of the new court were sworn in before the king on Saturday.
In a letter to members of the court, Abdullah stressed that the institution “offers an important guarantee of the separation of powers and respect for the rights and freedoms of citizens.”
Hekmat for his part said a constitutional court had been demanded by a “good number of Jordanians,” referring to the Islamist opposition.
Gulf group urges release of Saudi liberal activist
KUWAIT CITY: A Gulf civil society organisation called yesterday for the release of a Saudi activist arrested four months ago in the ultra-conservative kingdom on charges of setting up a liberal website.
“We call for the immediate release of Raef Badawi because the charges against him are unfounded,” the secretary general of the Gulf Forum for Civil Societies (GFCS), a body of liberal activists in the region, said.
Anwar Al Rasheed said Badawi, who has been in jail since his arrest in June, was tried in the Red Sea city of Jeddah on Saturday and that one of the two charges against him was dropped and his next hearing set for one month’s time.
Badawi, 35, was accused of “disobeying parents” and setting up a liberal website on theInternet. The disobedience charge was dropped in Saturday’s trial, Rasheed said.
The GFCS head also called on the Saudi government to compensate Badawi for detaining him illegally for several months.
One dead in Israeli air strike on Gaza
RAFAH: One Palestinian was killed and nine others wounded yesterday in an Israeli air strike that targeted a motorbike in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical sources said.
“One citizen was killed and five others, including two children, were wounded by an Israeli aircraft that fired on a motorbike in the Brazil neighbourhood in Rafah,” a medical source at Rafah hospital said, later updating the number of wounded to nine.
The Israeli military confirmed the strike.
Agencies
