Comments on: Amman: City of Circles gets a Square?

By: Lorenza

Lorenza — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 03:06:14 +0000

Beat a hasty retreatS

By: Hashemite Yard to Become Freedom Square at The Black Iris of Jordan

Hashemite Yard to Become Freedom Square at The Black Iris of Jordan — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 03:01:01 +0000

[…] So apparently the plan to create a “Freedom Square” that hosted free speech in Amman has found its location. The Hashemite Yard in downtown Amman is going to be ‘transformed’ into a platform for freedom of speech. […]

By: Nas

Nas — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 08:15:46 +0000

Mona looool :-D

By: Mona

Mona — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 07:37:55 +0000

I heard they have narrowd down the location of freedom square to two locations 1) Sahab 2) Jwaideh…for those who don’t know the former is a graveyard the latter is a notorious prison

By: Global Voices Online

Global Voices Online — Sat, 17 Dec 2005 18:43:29 +0000

From the Jordanian Blogosphere

Some interesting and controversial social topics are being discussed in the Jordanian blogosphere this week.
Freedom of Speech
Freedom of speech is not a given commodity in the Arab world, but are there winds of change? Naseem Tarawneh reports abou…

By: SugarCubes

SugarCubes — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 16:05:59 +0000

LOL the scary thing is, funny, unncessary and unrealistic projects do see the light more often than not.

hmmm actually it’s not funny, it’s scary.

By: Hamzeh

Hamzeh — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 15:38:38 +0000

No thank you, I choose the free press.

By: Nas

Nas — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 06:51:19 +0000

Lina, despite what a lot of people think there is actually friction between the university’s administration and the government, particularly the king. However this aside I was not really looking at the fruits of this labour but merely it’s presence, which although hardly there…is still there.

By: Lina

Lina — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 06:34:00 +0000

Nas… responding to your response to Jameed, yes there have been sit-downs between universities and government officials, but there are no signs of any fruits of that! There was an interview in Al-Ghad a couple of months ago with the president of the univerity of Jordan and he said that it is very dangerous to allow political party affiliations on campus!! I don’t know what the political development they’re preaching about is, when the unwrittem rule for appointing students to the student council (remember, half the members of UJ’s student council are appointed by the administration despite all pressures to go back back to full elections) is that they are not affiliated with any political party!!!

When there’s a demonstration on campus (other than the anti-terror demonstrations), officials from the Student Affairs Administrations send out people to collect names… Students generally feel that Student Affairs are run by the mukhabarat, and some serious steps need to be taken to change this view and establish some trust in all the promises and talks about political development!

That said, the optimist inside me is still alive and well… but is very thirsty for some tangible results

By: Big K

Big K — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 21:27:59 +0000

Plenty of room for everybody!

By: Nas

Nas — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 21:18:31 +0000

Big K, is it a big space

Rami, I doubt the completly-staged demonstrations, but sometimes I think its not such a bad idea to desginate geographical locations for demonstrations. Many of them in the past take on the form of riots and things and bones end up getting broken.

By: rami abdelrahman

rami abdelrahman — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 21:10:08 +0000

Brilliant ideas: Get all those who want to make their voices heard in one place so we can know them all. I can’t imagine the number of intelligence men who will work around this square. Or worse, lets have a place where completely-staged demonstrations can take place!

By: Big K

Big K — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 20:43:30 +0000

There is a nice open space on Share3 il Sha3b, off of the King Abdullah street.

By: Nas

Nas — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 18:01:22 +0000

onzlo, but in what shape and/or form would you rather see public freedom of speech be implemented in?

By: onzlo

onzlo — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 17:56:09 +0000

baaaaaad idea, if this ‘plan’ is implemented i bet soon enough it will loose any political value and just turn into something like a few deranged old men shouting out against il fajirat wal mutabarrijat will in7alal al akhlaki and the same old bull….

No thanks, give us the square, we really need more pedestrian public spaces in Amman, but for freedom of speech… in this case i’ll tell the government to keep it for themselves.

By: Nas

Nas — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 17:50:54 +0000

Hatem, let us pretend that i remember maybe your dream is becoming a reality

promises, anti-americanism?

By: promises

promises — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 17:48:27 +0000

Hmmm, quite contradicting to the goverments policies

I think this will turn out to be a square where people will be paid to speak. About what? I’ll leave it to you to guess

By: hatem abunimeh

hatem abunimeh — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 17:48:25 +0000

Remember a while back when I suggested that the Hashemite Courtyard become the place where the people should assemble to vent their frustration and state their views toward the government.

May be the Hashemite yard is shaped rectangularly rather than square, but I guess it is close enough for the purpose intended.

May be my dream is turning into reality.

By: Nas

Nas — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 17:09:12 +0000

Jameed, in the past 2 years or so there have been sit downs (at least according to what ive read in newspapers) between the government and either university boards or organizations to encourage political participation.

By: jameed

jameed — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 17:03:01 +0000

sort of on a tanget here, but when were university students in jordan ever encouraged to join political parties?