Protests erupted in Jordan's capital Amman and provincial towns after the government cut fuel subsidies in a move to secure a $2-billion IMF loan but which sent fuel prices soaring. More than 1,000 people spilled into the streets in the capital Amman late on Tuesday and smaller protests erupted in several provincial towns after Islamist and tribal opposition groups said they would demonstrate. Hundreds of protesters chanted against King Abdullah and the powerful intelligence forces in slogans that personally target the monarch and were unheard of before the wave of Arab Spring-inspired protests hit the kingdom early last year. "Freedom, freedom, down with Abdullah," young men chanted at the main Dakhiliyah square in the heart of Amman as angry crowds denounced the widely expected price hikes. Authorities bolstered security across the country that is a crossroads in the Middle East, bordering Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, the West Bank and Israel. Street protests against autocracy, corruption and mismanagement of funds have led to the overthrow of several long-serving Arab leaders, including those of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. But unlike pro-democracy Arab Spring-inspired demonstrations in neighbouring countries that have turned violent, Jordan has not recorded a single death in nearly two years of peaceful protests. Elsewhere in the country, scattered protests went off peacefully but a petrol station was burnt by angry youths in the country's second largest northern city of Irbid. The move announced by the cabinet and which takes effect after midnight is the first major rise in petrol prices since street protests early last year, inspired by the wave of Arab unrest, pushed Jordanian authorities to expand social spending and freeze major fuel price hikes. The price rises range from more than 50 percent for bottled gas used for cooking, 33 percent for diesel and kerosene for transport and heating and 14 percent on lower grade petrol. The government, mindful of public fury that exploded into street clashes in the depressed south of the country after price hikes in 1989 and 1996, had been reluctant to raise fuel prices.
