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Jordanians
Commemorate "Catastrophe"
additional reporting by Tareq Ayyoub
AMMAN, May 15 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Work came to a standstill for one hour Tuesday at Jordan's Palace of Justice where lawyers wore black bands on their heads and arms, in a sign of mourning in protest at Israel's creation in May 1948.
"This work stoppage is an expression of our strong indignation towards the extermination of the Palestinian people at the hands of the Zionists and the humiliating silence of the Arab countries and the international community," Jordanian Bar Association President Saleh Armuti said.
Jordan's bar association, which has 40,000 members and is dominated by Islamists, had urged the kingdom's residents to go on a work strike and fly black flags from their homes today.
The action demonstrates an anti-governmental stance, as Jordan, like Egypt, holds a peace agreement with Israel.
The lawyers on Tuesday demanded the abrogation of the peace treaty with Israel as they marked what Arabs call Al-Nakba, or the "catastrophe" of the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.
"We demand the government abrogate the peace treaty with the Zionist enemy Israel," Armuti told several thousand lawyers who gathered inside the Palace of Justice in downtown Amman.
The lawyers responded with chants calling for the expulsion of Israel's ambassador to Jordan. Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel in October 1994, the second Arab country after Egypt to have diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv.
Meanwhile, the headquarters of Jordan's professional unions was draped in black, as members also observed symbolic work stoppages across Amman and other parts of the kingdom in response to calls by their leaders.
In addition, around 1,000 students at Jordan University in Amman called for holy war against Israel on the anniversary.
The students gathered at the university campus waving green flags of the Islamic resistance movement Hamas, which is fighting the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Chanting, they called for "jihad" against Israel while burning an Israeli flag and an effigy representing Israeli settlements. The students also torched an Israeli bus nearby.
Outside the campus, 200 or so police surrounded the main entrance, preventing the demonstrators from taking to the streets as they had planned. The students dispersed peacefully in the early afternoon.
Meanwhile, hundreds of other students staged a further protest by marching around the Baq'a Refugee Camp situated 30 kilometers north of Amman, which houses some 200,000 Palestinian refugees. Baq'a is the largest refugee camp in Jordan, where 41% of its five million population is of Palestinian origin.
A group of about 30 Jordanian women held a separate rally at the Jordanian Women's Federation, waving black flags to signify the day of mourning for all Muslims and Arabs.
No arrests were reported at any of the demonstrations in and around Amman.
Palestinians call the day Al-Nakba, or "catastrophe", because hundreds of thousands of them were made homeless by the creation of the state of Israel.
Anti-Israeli sentiment has been rife in Jordan since the start of the Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, against Israeli rule in September which has so far claimed more than 500 lives, most of them Palestinian.
IslamOnline's correspondent in Amman reported that a further rally was planned for Tuesday evening in Amman.
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