A Jordanian short story writer started a hunger strike early this month to protest his exclusion from the Jordanian Writers Association (JWA) membership on “groundless reasons,” reported the Jordan Times newspaper on Sunday.
“I have applied for membership in the association three times, but they refused to accept my application,” Tayseer Nazmi told the paper.
He added that they gave him back the application “without disclosing the reasons behind (the JWA) refusal.”
“I have the legitimate right to be a member in the association,” said Nazmi, who has published two collections of short stories.
Nazmi said that he will register a “complaint with the concerned parties if they refuse my application again.”
JWA Deputy President Yusef Damra said that usually the “association forms a committee of three writers from outside the administrative body to review the membership applications.”
“[The committee] has the right to accept or refuse any application without revealing the reasons,” Damra told the paper.
However, Damra who is also a novelist, said that in many cases the committee fail to determine whether the published book of the applicant is valuable or not.
The applicant, added the deputy president, could register a complaint to the board's annual conference which will be in June 1, one day before JWA elections.
Nazmi was one of the 14 members of JWA who went on hunger strike two years ago to protest their exclusion from job opportunities in the public and private sectors, said the paper – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
