⁍ Jordanian security forces arrested leading members of the opposition-run teachers union on Saturday.

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⁍ Prosecutors charged Nasser Nawasreh, the acting head of the Jordanian Teachers Syndicate, with incitement.

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⁍ Riot police reinforcements were deployed on Saturday near the seat of government in the capital and in other areas where teacher activists were planning protests.

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– Jordan’s security forces swooped down on the country’s leading teachers’ union today, arrested its top leaders, and shut it down for two years, Reuters reports. The move comes after the union accused the government of failing to honor a deal reached last year to end a month-long strike last year. The government says it can’t afford a 50% pay rise this year because of an economic crisis, but the union says the accusation is part of a government smear campaign. Opposition politicians say the government has been using draconian emergency laws enacted last March at the start of the coronavirus lockdown to limit civil and political rights. Today’s crackdown “only further aggravate political tensions by the government at a time people are choked under hard economic conditions,” says the head of the country’s largest opposition party. The 100,000-strong union went on strike last year, shutting down schools across Jordan for a month in one of the longest and most disruptive public sector strikes in the country’s history. In recent weeks its leadership has accused the government of failing to honor a deal signed last October that ended the strike. The deal included a 50% pay rise this year, which the government now says is unaffordable because of the economic blow from the coronavirus crisis. Some officials have also accused union leaders of harboring the Islamist opposition’s political agenda. The union says this accusation is part of a government smear campaign. Opposition politicians say the government has been using draconian emergency laws enacted last March at the start of the coronavirus lockdown.