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A public display of affection by a couple in a modern street of Amman was secretly filmed and posted online, before going viral.

The police were able to track down the man, who the video shows dancing and embracing the person identified as his fiancee in the street near his car, using the license plate number.

The episode has sparked a debate about the priorities of both Jordanian society and the authorities.

Jordan, a majority-Muslim nation with Islam as the official state religion, is a generally conservative society.

Many Jordanians who shared the video on social media were in support of the authorities intervening to punish those involved in what they deemed a violation of public decency.

However, Jordanians who are more liberal or secular minded wrote in both liberal publications and social media to deride what happened, and accused their opponents of hypocrisy.


"Dear Jordanians, corruption and povery are the real thing that violates public decency," wrote Ehab.

Some mocked the authorities for ignoring more important issues, such as sexual harrassment, bad infrastucture and public services in certain parts of the kingdom.


Zulaikha Abu Risheh, writing in local newspaper Al-Ghad, suggested the act was nothing more than a harmless expression of love.

"The couple [ in the video] were not thinking about the schizophrenic society with double standards, which remain silent to the plight and oppression of women in Jordan," she wrote, in reference to the widely recognised disrcimination against women in personal status and other laws in the country, which favour males.


Abu Risheh also criticised the "mob mentality" in which some Jordanians deal with events, and called out the Jordanian authorities for punishing the couple while turning a blind eye to the person who illicitly filmed them and caused them to be shamed publicly.