At least 25 members of Jordan’s teachers’ syndicate, the country’s largest independent labour union, were arrested on Tuesday as authorities tried to prevent a protest in front of the Ministry of Education. The syndicate had planned a sit-in to protest the forced retirement of several teachers and restrictions placed by the government on the organisation and its members since 2020. The 150,000 strong labour union was formed after Jordan’s 2011 “Arab Spring” protests and has been a major organising force not only for teachers but also for Jordanians sympathetic to its mission. Since then, the s…