.ltWomen's rights debate inflames Jordanian electoral passions The Times, 2 November 1989 The first Jordanian general election campaign in 22 years has exploded into a bitter struggle between women's rights campaigners and hardline Muslim fundamentalists. At the centre of the controversy, which will have wide repercussions for other Islamic nations, is the elegant and petite figure of Mrs Toujan al-Faisal, aged 40. An articulate former television presenter and mother of three children, she has emerged as the most outspoken of the 12 women parliamentary candidates. The election next Wednesday for the new 80-seat lower house is the first nationwide poll in the strategic desert kingdom in which women have been allowed both to vote and to stand. In a desperate attempt to stifle her campaign, which has already embraced such normally taboo subjects as wife beating and child abuse, Islamic fundamentalists have filed a case of apostasy naming Mrs Faisal. During the 2 and a half-hour hearing, claimed by Arab diplomats to have been the first of its kind, the plaintiffs (one an assistant mufti in the armed forces) called on the religious court to declare Mrs Faisal incompetent, give immunity to anyone who killed her, deny her all rights, and ban her writings. The case, referred for a further hearing next Thursday, the day after polling, infuriated Jordanian intellectuals of both sexes and yesterday an angry group went to the royal palace to present a protest petition. One prominent lawyer said: "This is like the Salem witch hunts." As the 12-strong group met with King Husain, they were informed by the head of the royal court, Mr Mudar Badran, that the fundamentalists had agreed to drop the case. But Mrs Faisal - who has overnight become the best-known candidate - immediately announced her intention to sue the hardliners for slander. "The issue had become so central and divisive that it appears the King was forced to intervene and try to limit the damage," said one Jordanian source, who added that the petition had condemned the prosecution as a form of "mental and psychological terrorism". During the court proceedings, which have overshadowed other election gatherings, the fundamentalists argued that women should not be allowed to run for Parliament and men who supported women's rights should be punished. The case, which arose out of an article written by Mrs Faisal countering the Muslim fundamentalist view of a woman's role, has focused attention on the mounting conflict between hardliners and Islamic women who are resentful of the way in which they have been repressed. Despite threatening telephone calls ordering her to withdraw from the poll and publicly renounce her liberal views, Mrs Faisal stood her ground. Her home in Amman, where she lives with her husband, a gynaecologist, rapidly became the focus for all the local and foreign journalists covering the run-up to the poll next Wednesday. She said: "The telephone never stops ringing with support and even with people offering to become my bodyguards. I am a practising Muslim, and I begin with the Koran and what it says about women. That is what is frightening for these people." Mrs Faisal sees this as being crucial. "If I were a communist, someone they regard as an atheist, they would have seen the threat as less," she said. At election meetings, diplomats have reported that the women's rights issue has led to verbal exchanges between women - who have been attending in large numbers - and the bearded Islamic militants dismayed at earlier support given to the women's cause by the King. "These extremists wanted to stop women's advancement by making an example out of me," said Mrs Faisal. "They also wanted to impose their laws on the country without parliamentary or voter consent." The fundamentalists had also called on the Amman court to reject any repentance that Mrs Faisal expressed. "They wanted to deny me the right given to every Muslim to repent if it is found that they blasphemed Islam." Sensing a moderate backlash, the Muslim Brotherhood, the main Islamic grouping which is fielding more than 20 candidates, has attempted to dissociate itself from the case. "This is a piece of theatre to give a bad idea about the Islamic movement," its spokesman claimed. The passions which the argument over women's rights can provoke were demonstrated by letters written to the daily, al-Rai, as the campaign got under way. "The weight of a woman's brain is less than the brain of man," argued one letter-writer. Another declared bluntly that women "are short of brains based on women's natural structure, which differs from the man's as her emotional, psychological structure prevails". .lcMrs Toujan-al-Faisal became the first woman in the Jordanian parliament in 1993. She received death threats from Islamic fundamentalists during her election campaign, and endured verbal and physical abuse in the parliament itself. During one debate, male MPs threw ashtrays at her. .llThe Body: The weaker sex Women's Lib: Global The Vote: Global suffrage .ll .lsWR11:WR11_01S WR09:WR09_05S WR07:WR07_09S .ls