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AMMAN (Reuters) - Jordan’s interior and justice ministers were fired on Sunday for attending a dinner party at a restaurant that violated the coronavirus restrictions that their own ministries are supposed to enforce.
Prime Minister Bisher al Khasawneh accepted the resignation of Interior Minister Samir Mobeideen and Justice Minister Bassam Talhouni, days after the announcement of new rules intended to stem a month-old surge of infections driven by a more contagious variant of the virus.
Their appearance in a public banqueting room, disregarding social distancing rules, added to widespread outrage at the hefty fines slapped on ordinary people while officials go unpunished for attending functions with far more than the 20 guests allowed.
Police have arrested dozens of people for breaking stay-at-home orders in recent weeks and shut hundreds of shops and businesses in one of the toughest crackdowns in a year of lockdowns and restrictions.
The government has also deployed more military personnel at hundreds of checkpoints to enforce last Thursday’s decision to bring forward a curfew from midnight to 10 p.m.
Officials say the latest wave of infections has been driven by people flouting restrictions on movement.
Under the new rules, anyone not wearing a face mask in public can be fined up to 100 dinars ($140), a punitive sum in a relatively poor country where the pandemic has pushed unemployment to record levels.
The kingdom, with a population of around 10 million, has recorded 380,268 coronavirus infections and 4,627 deaths.
The Jordanian Ministers for Interior and Justice resigned yesterday after they were found violating anti-coronavirus  measures.
File photo of now ex-Minister of Justice Bassam Talhouni.
Both Interior Minister Samir Mobeideen and Justice Minister  were found at a public banquet violating the social distancing as well as maximum permissible capacity guidelines which their ministries are expected to enforce.  Current capacity is limited to 20 people.  This comes days after the imposition of new restrictions on Jordanians, including stay-at-home orders, a military-enforced curfew and a 100  (~US$140) fine on those not wearing face masks.

Their resignations was accepted by Prime Minister  and, in one of two Royal Decrees, King Abdullah II.  According to multiple reports, the second decree ratified Deputy Prime Minister for Local Administration  to run the Ministry of the Interior and State Minister for Legal Affairs  to run the Ministry of Justice.

A recent surge in new infections by  of the coronavirus have led to at least 4627 deaths and over 300 thousand cases in the nation of ten million, Reuters reporterd.  Officials attribute it to Jordanians not obeying the restrictions, and have arrested dozens for breaching stay-at-home orders; hundreds of businesses have also been closed, Reuters further added in the report.