Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Forty Salafist inmates have begun an open-ended hunger strike at a Jordanian detention center to protest their prison conditions and alleged ill-treatment, the prisoners' lawyer said Wednesday.

"The 40 Salafists are in prison pending trial on charges related to the Syria issue," lawyer Moussa al-Abdallat told Anadolu Agency by phone.

"They have started the hunger strike to protest bad detention conditions," he added.
He said human rights organizations did nothing to check detention conditions – or what Salafists inmates were subject to behind bars – in Jordan.

He called on these organizations to visit Jordanian prisons and hear the accounts of prisoners.
Jordan's General Security Directorate, meanwhile, said the Salafist prisoners' hunger strike had not yet begun, despite having been announced.

Around 120 people are in detention in Jordan for alleged involvement in fighting in neighboring Syria and other alleged offenses, according to previous statements issued by Jordanian militant leaders.
For the last three months, Jordanian authorities have cracked down on nationals who have shown support for the ISIL group.

The militant group has recently overrun large swathes of territory in both Iraq and Syria and has continued to defy an international U.S.-led coalition that has targeted the group in both countries in recent weeks.

*World Bulletin