Jordanian IAF Christian Member Resigns Over Pressures

The only Christian leading member in the Jordanian Islamic Action Front resigns after reportedly facing Christian pressures.
 
Only one week after electing him as a leader in an administrative body inside the Islamic Action Front Party (IAF) in Jordan, the Christian member, Aziz Masaada, resigned; IAF members attribute his resignation to facing Christian and religious pressures.
 
Masaada, 44 years, said in his resignation:” I offer a final resignation after the news of my election took religious dimensions, followed by a campaign of rumors that targeted defaming me, in addition to other reasons”.
 
Masaada who sent his resignation last Thursday evening the fax from his residence in Al Karak, south of Amman, didn’t detail the so called other reasons.
 
Reacting to the decision of resignation, Zaki Bin Arsheed, the Secretary-General of Islamic Action Front Party, the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, said in a statement to Ikhwanweb that the resignation is due to ” religious pressures from his Christian community or from some politicians who do not want to show the tolerance of the Islamic movement that does not differentiate between a Muslim and a Christian”.
 
Bin Arsheed pointed out that Masaada sent the resignation by fax and did not hand it over in person, and he stated a package of reasons, including a campaign of rumors aiming at defaming him, in addition to other personal reasons.
 
Bin Arsheed confirmed that there are official and security authorities that exercised pressures on Masaada to resign from the IAF.
 
“If it was proved that there are official authorities behind the resignation, we will exercise many legal and media methods to respond to this campaign”, he added.
 
Bin Arsheed said that the Islamic Action Front Party stroke a wonderful example in a respected reconciliation and coexistence among the sects of the Jordanian society and that the Islamic Action Front Party opens its arms to all of them.
A Muslim Brotherhood precedent
 
In a precedent in the history of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, the IAF declared this Feb., 20, that Masaada won a membership in the administrative body of one of the party’s branches in Amman.
 
Zaki Bin Arsheed, the IAF Secretary-General, confirmed earlier that the Party’s central committee is open for Christians who are qualified for assuming leading positions, pointing out that the party which has an Islamic source of authority is a civilian party based on citizenship; therefore, any Christian member can run for the membership of the IAF central committee, confirming there is no obstacle in front of any Christian who want to assume a leading position in the hierarchy of the party.
 
The party’s condition for accepting Christians is that the member nominated for membership in the party should be convinced of the principles and targets of the party that was founded in 1992.
 
The Islamic Action Front Party is the most prominent Jordanian opposition party. Its internal system seeks “applying the Islamic Sharia in various fields of life”, and the party has 17 MPs out of 110 in the Jordanian House of Representatives.
 
It is worth mentioning that the Christians account for 5 % of  the 5 million Jordanian population.


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