After the Martyrdom of Jawad.. It Is Time to Toughen Terrorism Penalties to Serve as a “Lesson”

Al-Taj News – Wafaa Sbeih. Nothing is harder on a homeland than bidding farewell to its sons one after another, and nothing is more painful than moments of performing duty turning into a tryst with martyrdom.. Thus Jordanians received today the news of the martyrdom of Corporal Jawad Al-Slayta, twenty-one years old, who fell while performing his official duty.

Once again, Jordan pays a heavy price from the blood of its sons, as grief looms today over the homes of Jordanians due to terrorism that knows no sanctity for life and no value for human beings.. From the tragedy of the Hammoud church in Karak, in which the homeland lost nine of its sons, to the martyrdom of Corporal Jawad Al-Slayta, questions are renewed about the extremist ideology that still targets the security and stability of the homeland.

How much your departure has pained us, Jawad, and how much this news has weighed down the hearts of Jordanians; a young man in the prime of his youth was performing his duty, when the hand of treachery reached him, leaving behind a grief that words cannot summarize, and major questions about the extremist ideas that target the minds of youth, and the takfiri rhetoric that sows hatred and sedition and drives toward violence.

Today, the voices of Jordanians are rising, demanding the toughening of penalties against perpetrators of terrorist crimes, and the application of the maximum penalties of the law, including death sentences where their legal conditions apply, in light of renewed demands to confront extremist ideology and dry up its sources, rather than settling for dealing with its outcomes after the disaster has occurred.

Taking into consideration that confronting this crime is not complete merely by arresting its perpetrator and bringing him to trial; rather, it requires ascertaining the truth of what happened in all its details, and determining responsibilities clearly, ensuring that no potential role in planning, incitement, or support is overlooked. True justice requires dealing with this crime with the firmness it deserves, and consolidating the principle that an assault on the security of society, its institutions, and security personnel will not pass without deterrent and strict accountability, so that the fate of anyone who considers committing such acts serves as a “lesson to whoever would learn.”

What happened is a painful crime; the loss of a young man of Jawad’s stature is not a loss to his family alone, but a pain for an entire homeland and a message that calls for a serious stand to review the ways of confronting extremism and takfiri ideology, and to protect the minds of youth from ideas that turn difference into hatred, hatred into violence, and violence into crime.

May God have mercy on the martyr Jawad Al-Slayta, and protect Jordan and its people from every dark thought and treacherous hand.