By Libya Herald staff.
Tripoli, 10 March 2015:
Four female members of the rump General National Congress (GNC) who were refused entry into Jordan . . .[restrict]and detained at Amman’s Queen Alia airport on Saturday are due back in Libya today. The four – Majda Al-Falah (Hay Al-Andalus), Huda Al-Benani (Benghazi), Fawzia Karwan (Ain Zara) and Mona Koukala (Obari) – are all members of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Justice and Construction Party, and were detained on arrival in Jordan. They are expected to give a press conference this evening about their experiences.
They were earlier said to have been given no reason for their detention, although a security source in Jordan told Turkey’s state-owned Anadolu Agency that the Jordanian authorities were investigating the identification papers of the female lawmakers. Another source said that the Jordanians were making a political point, which was that as members of the continuing GNC and of an MB-linked organisation, they were unwelcome.
Jordan has stated on several occasions that it recognises only the House of Representatives as Libya’s legitimate legislature.
The women were held at the airport for nearly 20 hours, where they underwent a series of interrogations by Jordanian intelligence before being released to travel on to Istanbul.
According to Al-Falah, she and the other three were part of a delegation of eight Libyans traveling to Amman for a national dialogue workshop organised through the United Nations, to which they had been invited. Other members of the group were allowed to enter the country.
“This action taken by Jordanian authorities was unacceptable,” said Falah.
The Justice and Construction Party has condemned the incident, saying that it could not believe that such an action was taken by Jordan. [/restrict]
