For over 70 days, the 24-year-old student at the Jordan University Al-Aqaba branch and leading member of the student office in the Jordanian Communist Party Baha’a Al-Din Aliyan has been detained by the Jordanian government. Four days after his arrest at his university residence, member of the Political Bureau of the Jordanian Communist Party Dr. Omar Awwad was also arrested at the hospital he works at. Both have been held without a trial or even a charge until today.
The Communist Party in Jordan has lambasted this as a ‘dangerous move that reflects the continuing policy of restriction on political and party work’ and nothing more than a ‘a miserable attempt to discredit the party from its policy and principal attitudes towards national and national issues.’ These political arrests came in the wake of the Party’s condemnation of the illegal attacks launched by American-Israeli forces on Iran, and explicitly denounced the presence of American military bases in Jordan and the wider Arab world as ‘a blatant assault on Arab national security, [that] touches the essence of national sovereignty and puts the Arab people at direct risk’ and therefore called for Jordan’s government ‘to cancel military cooperation agreements with the United States of America’.
The struggle being waged by the Jordanian Communist Party and their allies in the Preparatory Committee for the National Front, namely the Jordanian People’s Democratic Unity Party and the Jordanian Democratic People’s Party, for a Jordan not subservient to imperialist interests has grown increasingly sharper since the launch of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in 2023 and the horrors unleashed by the Zionist-American alliance since. Approximately 2,390,000 Palestinian refugees reside in Jordan, the largest population outside of Palestine, and as the only exit and entry point for the Occupied West Bank this has undoubtedly risen due to the ongoing ethnic cleaning.
The once British installed Hashemite monarchy has banned mass gatherings and demonstrations since 2025 that often targeted the American embassy and called for an end to the normalisation agreements between Jordan and Israel. Meanwhile, it has increased co-operation with America/NATO through intelligence, the use of bases on Jordanian soil and even deploying the air force to protect Israel from incoming fire. Jordanian security sources have a reputation for brutality, disappearances and at higher levels co-operation with Mossad – to the point where Gazan visitors were often subject to long interrogations or denial of entry even before the current war.
The Jordanian Communist Party and the Preparatory Committee for the National Front continue to work despite this, organising mass demonstrations where possible and continuing constant work among the people. Their demands for an end to the Wadi-Araba peace treaty and Israeli-Jordanian ‘Gas Agreement’ are not just the call of the masses but a vital step to defend Jordan from an increasingly expansionist Zionist regime that see’s the East Bank of the Jordan River, along with the West Bank as part of ‘Ersatz Israel’ – not just in messaging from ministers but from the establishment of new formations of the Israeli Occupation Army and the now near total control of Jordan’s water supply due to Israel’s occupation of south Syria. In 1968, similar Israeli ambitions were defeated at the battle of Karameh (Karameh meaning dignity), and the masses call for a renewal of this spirt and today’s struggle to follow in the path shown at Karameh.
It has been reported in this outlet the call from progressive forces in Jordan for us in Britain to continue to exercise the freedoms we have, and continue to raise the call of the Palestinian and Arab peoples against the ties between the Genocidal Israeli state and Britain’s. Further analysis has shown how historically the British state will implement the methods used in the imperialised nations in the metropole. We are witnessing the largest attack on the right to demonstrate in this generation by an increasingly repressive Labour government as it continues it’s anti-worker policies, and with the spectre of Reform on the horizon it is more important now than ever that we not only defend our rights but continue to advance the causes of our fellow workers facing repression abroad – be it the 10,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli torture camps or through comrades like Baha’a Al-Din Aliyan and Dr. Omar Awwad.
Comrade Baha’a could be any one of our cadres, we regard the continued detention of our youth comrade as a direct attack on the freedom loving youth of Britain, as part of a continued trend from Jordan to Kenya where Britain’s ruling classes export the repression of Communist and progressive forces to the reactionary regimes it supports.
The International Department of the Young Communist League extend an unending respect to both him and all free youth of Jordan who continue to struggle for their rights. We reaffirm our continued struggle in support of the masses of Jordan and the Arab world in calling for a Palestine free from occupation and Western-backed horrors, and we fully support the Jordanian Communist Party’s demand to immediately release of Dr. Omar Awwad and Baha’a Al Din Aliyan.
We encourage our readers to keep up to date on these comrades struggles at the below outlets:
Jordanian Communist Party Social Media
Al-Jamaheer – News outlet of the Jordian Communist Party
Cathal Ó Gaillín, is a member of the Young Communist League’s International Department
