The Compass – The draft system for the practice of partisan activities in universities, prepared by the Ministry of Higher Education, has sparked widespread criticism, including working to exercise “soft repression” and restricting parties instead of granting them more freedoms, despite the royal’s repeated talk about the importance of the involvement of young people and university students in party work.

The draft system emphasizes the right of students to engage in partisan activities inside the university campus, including activities related to partisan awareness and education, and those aimed at introducing the electoral process and encouraging student participation in it, holding and participating in seminars and political debates, and “any other activity approved by the Deanship of Affairs.” students.

However, the student must adhere to the partisan activity; Not to reside in places and times other than the authorized “in accordance with the provisions of this system, and the instructions issued pursuant thereto.”

The system requires that a request to establish partisan activity be submitted to the Deanship at least one week in advance, provided that the higher education institution is obligated to respond to the request to establish partisan activity within a maximum period of three working days from the date of submitting the request, while the Deanship supervises the students’ practice of partisan activities inside the university campus according to The legislation in force.

No need for new legislation

Fakher Daas, the coordinator of the National Campaign for Student Rights (Zahbtona), said that the regime’s project emptied the idea of ​​partisan work in universities from its stated goal of involving young people in parties, and reduced it to a mere request to establish an activity, as he put it.

He added, however, that “allowing partisan work in universities does not require legislation, but rather a real will for reform; It consists in reconsidering the repressive disciplinary systems, and allowing the establishment of elected student unions.”

Daas explained that “Article (6/c) of the project; It made the Dean of Student Affairs an administrative ruler with absolute powers to prevent and allow any party activity, and even interfere in the details of the activity, and modify it in terms of place, time, names involved, and the content of the activity itself, while Article (6/d) granted him the right to stop the party’s previously approved activity. during its session.

He added that “the disciplinary systems that are applied in universities, which contradict the freedom of student work and criminalize it; The draft system did not include any modification to it.”

Daas continued: “The project did not obligate universities to allow the existence of elected student unions within them. Rather, Article (9/A) indirectly granted universities the right not to allow these unions to exist.”

The aforementioned article states that “higher education institutions are obligated to organize student unions, clubs, or societies, and to provide students with the opportunity to exercise their right to run and vote for the elections of these councils, unions or clubs, and to express their partisan identities.”

In this context, a member of the Arab Renewal Bloc at the University of Jordan, student Farouk Al-Tabbaa, explained that the universities’ choice between organizing student unions, or student clubs and societies, clearly means abandoning the idea of ​​forming a student union that truly represents students, and replacing it with organizing medical clubs or cultural or something.

Pros on paper

Al-Tabbaa said that talking about the existence of positives in the draft system is nothing more than talk on paper, “We had student unions and an excellent electoral system at one time, however, student work was restricted, and members of the unions were referred to investigation because of their activities inside the university. “.

Al-Tabbaa added that the students suffered a lot of security harassment and from the deanships of student affairs, and this will not change with the presence of parties inside universities; Because the project made the Dean of Student Affairs an administrative governor, and did not grant student work more freedoms.

He explained that there is an exaggeration about the differences that the project will make towards the student movement, suggesting that it will be nothing more than “organizing seminars for parties inside universities, and nothing more.”

Al-Tabbaa indicated that university students’ affiliation with parties is not prohibited at all. There are actually partisan students, and they practice their activities like other students, stressing that “the draft system will not replace the student forces with partisan forces as some market, and we will not see a list of the so-and-so party inside the university; Because the Deanship of Student Affairs can prevent this.”

He stressed that what is required is to compel universities to form student unions, release student freedoms, abolish penalties imposed on students for expressing their opinions, and reverse the decision to make the Dean of Student Affairs an administrative governor.

turning back

for his part; The Islamic Action Front (the largest Jordanian party) described the draft system as “disappointing” and “extends the restrictions of student work, rather than encouraging it.”

The youth sector in the party, in a statement issued recently, said that the project is a “real response to the outcomes of the Royal Committee for the Modernization of the Political System, as it represents a restriction of partisan work,” stressing that “the mentality of guardianship over students is still dominant among the decision maker.”

The statement deplored making the project of the Dean of Student Affairs “a supervising guardian of partisan activity, on the basis of subordination and control, not real partnership, without any real guarantees of impartiality.”

The statement pointed out that the fourth item of this system includes loose terminology and broad requirements for any partisan activity in universities, and prohibits the establishment of partisan work during exam periods, student graduation and their council elections.

The Islamic Action stressed the need to take real steps to provide the appropriate environment for students. By amending the disciplinary systems in universities, which constitute a sword wielded over student work,” noting that “it is not possible to talk about partisan work in universities, while most public and private universities do not have a student union.”

He concluded that “this system in this way represents a return to the background, and contradicts the royal directives towards political reform, and the need to encourage young people to engage in partisan work without any restrictions on them, and to push for a student partisan life.”

He called on the party to “provide a real political climate, away from the security grip that still controls the scene, and to create the atmosphere for real partisan and political work.”

King Abdullah II had called, during a meeting he held with the heads of official universities last July 26, for university youth to be an essential part of the political modernization process and to engage in partisan programmatic work.

The King stressed, “the necessity of implementing a system for organizing partisan activities in universities, and working in an institutional way to prevent placing any barriers for young people to participate in political life,” pointing out the importance of “providing a positive university environment that contributes to the desired political modernization.”

(Arabic 21)