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Thursday, May 19, 2011

Jordanians against naturalization of Palestinian Arabs

In what has become almost routine, another group of prominent Jordanians warned against any government plan that would naturalize the Palestinian Arabs into full citizens.

The same thing happened a couple of weeks ago. From MEMRI/Al Jazeera:
A national conference of former soldiers in Jordan has criticized the Jordanian regime, due to its "colossal failure" in the administration of the country. ...

The conference accused Queen Rania of making decisions in the kingdom, including security decisions, and demanded that the 1988 decision to sever the kingdom's connection with the West Bank be implemented, and that interior ministers who have since then permitted Palestinians to become naturalized citizens be prosecuted, because doing so serves Israel and harms Palestinian national identity.

Even though most Palestinian Arabs in Jordan are citizens, Jordan has been slowly stripping away their citizenship if they have any tenuous link to the West Bank.

Here is the story of only one man who has nothing to do with Palestine and yet who is losing his Jordanian citizenship, as he wrote to the Ammon News:

The Department of Civil Status and Passports (DCSP) / Amman Branch has written off my name from Certificate of Citizenship obtained by my father Sulieman Salameh Alfrejat, born in Beer Sheva 1942, on the grounds that I had exceeded the age of eighteen by two months' time (my father got citizenship in the 17th of March 1987),telling me that I should have applied to an independent Certificate of Jordanian Citizenship separately at that time .

Here comes the question :whose fault was that? My illiterate father's fault or DCSP's fault?! who is to be blamed?it is clearly that the mistake committed by DCSP and therefore it is their responsibility to correct it.

Accordingly, the Department of Civil Status decided to cancel my caller ID and my Family's Book from the register of civil status and asked me to hand them to the Department.Moreover they made a ''security-block'' on my account on Department of Civil Status's computer network , knowing that I was born in Zarqa, Jordan in 1969 and have Jordanian Certificate of Birth a birth and have been living in Jordan on a continuous basis without interruption or travel Since that date until now, and that I am married to a Jordanian lady and I have two sons. Also I do not have any relationship with the West Bank or PA and I have never been there and so I have never had any of its ID's or Cards, you are kindly requested to see the accompanying documents.

My grandfather , my father,my mother and all of my 15 brothers and sisters have Jordanian citizenship and live here in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, I also have Jordanian identity number 6285778 and the Jordanian Family Book number 557 233 C which are threatened with cancellation in addition to the Military -Service Book .

Because of this step, my family is now 'scattered' between Kingdom of Suadia Arabia where my wife started working there 18 months ago and Jordan where I ,with my 4 and 2 year- old sons respectively , have been waiting for this problem to be resolved but no progress has been achieved so far..

I hope this call find its way to any one with generosity and humanity or to whom it may concern to help me get my documents back soon so that our family could be reunited , knowing that I have handed Ministry of Interior personally,as well as some MPs, a detailed Copy/Letter of my problem attached to it copies of the papers and documents which I have had, but no answer so far - imploring God Almighty to bless and save you He is all –Hearing, All-knowing.

Mohammed Suleiman Salama Alfrejat
For the past 63 years, the majority of Palestinian Arab suffering has been at the hands of Arab countries pretending to love them - not Israel.