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Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Authorities arrested a Jordanian on Monday after he threw a pair of shoes at Prime Minister Abdullah Nsur, along with five cabinet ministers, during a ceremony in the northern city of Jerash, an official said.

“The prime minister was talking about the economy, when Mefleh Mahasneh, 65, head of the Jerash countryside society that was attending the event, stood up and told the prime minister: ‘You raised the prices’,” the municipality official told Agence France-Presse.

“The mayor told Mahasneh to stop because it was not his turn to talk. Mahasneh, an army retiree, got angry and took off his shoe and threw it towards the stage on which the prime minister and the ministers were sitting.”

Mahasneh then took off his other shoe and threw it in the same direction. “The pair of shoes landed on a table on the stage. Police then arrested Mahasneh.

“I think he was detained for his own protection because some attendees threatened to take action against him,” added the official.
A wave of nationwide protests and strikes were sparked after Nsur’s government raised fuel prices, including house gas, by up to 52 percent in November 2012. The price surge was imposed to help cut a government deficit of 3.5 billion dinars (around $5bn), AFP reported.

Jordanians also took to the streets to protest growing unemployment and poverty rates, and demanded political and economic reforms in the kingdom as well as anti-corruption efforts.

Security personnel present at the event gathered footage of the incident so as to prevent its dissemination in the media, local news outlets reported.

*Agencies