JORDANIAN
HASHEMITE REGIME FURTHER STRANGLES THE PRESS DESPERATELY TRYING
TO MAINTAIN CONTROL AND POWER
MER - Washington - 14 July:
Press restrictions and censorship are
rampant in Egypt, thinly veiled with legalisms and excuses of various kinds.
Indeed, how ironic that it would be difficult and dangerous for Egyptian
journalists to write openly in Arabic about the realities of censorship
in their own country as they sometimes can about what is happening elsewhere.
Using their English-language weekly
Al Ahram, not read by everyday Egyptians, the Mubarak regime lets out a
little pressure by allowing this kind of reporting once and awhile. Maybe
the thinking is that by pointing out what's happening in Jordan it makes
its own substantial pattern of severe repression look not quite so bad.
Maybe it also has something to do with general Arab uneasiness over the
exceedingly close collaborationist relations that exist between the most
senior levels of the Hashemite regime and the Israelis, even today.
The situation in Jordan is actually
considerably worse than this misleadingly headlined and rather mild article
reveals. One wonders how much longer the Hashemite government of Jordan
will exist. Indeed, maybe it is precisely the weakness of King Hussein's
overall situation that has caused him to throw in his lot with the U.S.
and Israel, both now pledged covertly and overtly to prevent his overthrow
which in historical and political terms is long overdue.
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See the MER JORDAN MAGAZINE for previous
MER articles:
http://www.MiddleEast.Org/Jordan.htm
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FREE PRESS IN DANGER
Jordanian journalists are in an uproar
over a new press law that they see as a violation of freedom of expression
and an attempt to curb media criticism on Israel, Lola Keilani reports
from Amman.
[From Al-Ahram English Weekly 25 June-1
July 1998:]
In an attempt to muzzle criticism directed
at Israel and the heads of the Gulf states, the Jordanian government earlier
this month {June} drafted a new Press and Publication Law (PPL) which imposes
fines of up to $50,000 on newspapers that publish reports which could harm
relations with "friendly heads of state".
The law identifies 14 off-limit areas,
which include ideas, opinions and cartoons which might be considered harmful
to relations with friendly or Islamic or Arab states. In addition to being
fined, a journalist could also be jailed if he/she enters onto such forbidden
ground.
"If we publish a report on human rights
violations by Israel in the West Bank, the newspaper will be shut down,
will have to pay compensation and its license could be revoked," said Taher
Edwan, chief-editor of Arab Al-Youm daily newspaper.
The new draft law also prohibits newspapers
from publishing political ideas/ opinion/ position pieces by professional
associations, charitable societies and cultural forums, particularly those
which are opposed to normalisation of ties with Israel.
..If the draft is endorsed by the Jordanian
Parliament, the 13 weekly newspapers have threatened to shut down, saying
that no worthy news will be available for publishing.
..The law gives the Council of Ministers
the right to deny licenses to new newspapers, and to waive their right
to appeal the council's decision to the Higher Court of Justice -- a right
enshrined in the earlier 1993 PPL.
It also raises the minimum capital
requirement for daily newspapers from $75,000 to $1.5 million, and for
weeklies from $22,000 to $450,000. Dailies and weeklies are now required
to deposit a bank guarantee of $150,000 and $75,000 respectively in the
Ministry of Information accounts, to insure immediate payment of fines
incurred.
..The draft law...gives the director
of the Press and Publication Department (PPD) the right to ask the court
to suspend publication of newspapers being sued by the department within
24 hours, if he sees fit.
..The draft law also grants the director
of the PPD the authorityto monitor local and foreign publications, research
institutions, publishing houses, polling centres, bookstores, translation
offices and advertising bureaus. A research or polling centre could be
shut down if it receives funding from non-Jordanian organisations.
..Journalists are not optimistic that
the parliament will amend the restrictions and constraints imposed by the
proposed law for two main reasons: the shortage of opposition deputies
in parliament, and the fact that this parliament has had a long history
of strong agreement with the prime minister.
