AMMAN, Jordan, June 10 (UPI) -- The only woman to be ever elected to Parliament in Jordan was in the hospital Monday following a hunger strike to protest against her treatment in prison where she is serving a sentence for seditious libel.
Toujan Faisal's lawyers said the former legislator was suffering from dehydration and was moved to the military-run Hussein Medical Center on Sunday after she refused to eat prison food.
Faisal, 53, is serving an 18-month prison term after the State Security Court last month convicted her on four charges of "seditious libel deemed harmful to the dignity of the state."
Medical sources at the hospital said her condition was stable and that she might be discharged and returned to prison as early as Monday night or early Tuesday.
This is the second time Faisal has been taken to the hospital since she was arrested and detained in March.
Her lawyer, Zaid Radaydeh, said Faisal, Jordan's only woman to have reached parliament through free elections (1993-97), stopped eating last week to protest the Juweideh Prison administration's refusal to allow her family to bring her food and newspapers.
A relative of Faisal's told United Press International that the prison administration and guards were "intentionally depriving Toujan of her basic rights, as if to further punish her for her (political) positions."
The State Security Court convicted Faisal, a feminist and outspoken critic of the government, of harming "the dignity of the state" after she wrote an article in the U.S.-based satirical Arab Times and an e-mail to King Abdullah accusing Prime Minister Ali Abul Ragheb and other officials of personally benefiting from a government decision to double insurance premiums on vehicles.
During her monthlong trial, her lawyers withdrew from the hearings to protest the court's retraction of an earlier approval to summon the prime minister and other officials to testify for the defense. The lawyers wanted to establish that the prime minister and other members of his family were shareholders in an insurance company.
Faisal, a mother of three, was also found guilty of "offending religious sentiments" for complaining to prison guards over the high volume of a Koran recitation on the radio.
Under a recent amendment to the State Security Court Law, passed by the government in the absence of a Parliament, the court's verdict cannot be appealed because the charges against her are regarded as misdemeanors and not crimes.
But her lawyers have filed for appeal, citing the "unconstitutionality" of the State Security Court because the law governing it was a provisional bill that has not been approved by a parliament.
