By Jamal Halaby

Associated Press
 

AMMAN: Pro-reform activists took to the streets across Jordan Friday, stepping up their calls for the prime minister to resign because they say he has failed to fight corruption.
About 3,000 people, including leftists and members of Jordan’s powerful Muslim Brotherhood, protested in seven cities across Jordan. The opposition accuses Prime Minister Marouf al-Bakhit of taking a lenient approach toward corruption and says he is stalling political reform.

Protesters have been demanding more openness, economic reforms and new elections for Parliament.
“Bakhit should resign because he failed to take serious steps toward real reform, except to provide lip service to appease the public,” said Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Jamil Abu-Bakr, one of about 400 protesters in downtown Amman. The Brotherhood’s political arm – the Islamic Action Front – is Jordan’s largest opposition party.
Calls for reform have grown since a convicted tycoon’s departure from Jordan, allegedly for medical treatment.
King Abdullah II ordered a probe into disappearance in February of Khaled Shaheen, who was serving a prison term for bribery and corruption.

Two Cabinet ministers resigned last week over Shaheen’s disappearance.
“If Bakhit is serious about reform, how come Shaheen was smuggled out of the country?” asked Maan Sabri, one of 300 protesters in another Amman district – the low-income Hay Tafayleh.
Elsewhere in Amman, a crowd of about 150 protesters gathered at a mosque near the Israeli Embassy and vented anger at Israel, two days before Sunday’s anniversary of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. A larger anti-Israel rally is planned for Sunday in the Jordan Valley, near the western border with Israel.