Hundreds of Jordanians protested Friday across the kingdom against the government's decision to impose new taxes on a string of goods and services, calling on the cabinet to resign. The government earlier this month imposed new sales taxes on internet and mobile use, bread, domestic fuel and petrol, cigarettes and fizzy drinks.
Around 1,500 Jordanians took to the streets of downtown Amman after weekly Muslim prayers at the Husseini Mosque in a protest organised by the opposition Muslim Brotherhood.
The demonstrators marched from the mosque to the seat of the nearby municipality chanting slogans demanding the ouster of the government and venting anger at the price rises.
"The people of Jordan are on fire, all because of the rise in prices," some chanted, AFP correspondents said.
"The government that raises prices must fall, the government that impoverishes people must go," was another rallying cry, as demonstrators held up signs that read: "Raising prices is playing with fire."
Similar protests were also staged in the north-western city of Salt, as well as in the regions of Karak and Madaba, south of the capital.
The price rises come as Jordan faces a public debt of about $35 billion and after Amman struck a deal with the International Monetary Fund to secure a $723 million three-year credit line.
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