Young Jordanians taste political protest for the first time

(Reuters)–Jordanian accountant Leen Samer has never attended a protest in Amman before.

But since last week, she and her friends have flocked to rallies near the cabinet office every night to join the country’s largest protests in years.

“I feel like something is changing,” she said after midnight on Tuesday, with hundreds of people around her chanting “government of thieves” and waving flags.

“There’s no going back,” the 24-year-old said. “Young people are very excited, and if anything from now on we’re not going to be silent.”

A draft law to raise income taxes, part of reforms backed by the International Monetary Fund, has brought thousands onto the streets in Amman and other parts of Jordan. Public anger has been building since a steep rise in the general sales tax and the end of bread subsidies earlier this year.

For many of the protesters, it is their first taste of political dissent in a country where tight security has largely succeeded in keeping unrest at bay.

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