Jordan Parl’t Seeks Jail Terms for Violating Gag Orders

 Press Freedom at Stake

AMMAN (Middle East Eye) – The vote by the Jordanian parliament to increase the punishment for journalists covering secret trials or criminal investigations has sent shockwaves among media workers in the country.
Media workers say the amendments are yet another attack on press freedom, which has already been muzzled by laws and decisions banning media coverage of sensitive or controversial issues, including news of the royal family, workers’ protests, and corruption allegations.
Prior to the amendment, Article 225 of Jordan’s Penal Code stipulated a fine of $17 for violating gag orders, but now MPs voted to add a jail term of three months.
“The amendment is an encroachment on the law and an attempt to terrorize journalists,” Basel Okor, editor of Jo24 website, told Middle East Eye.
Okor was detained in the summer of 2020 after he covered the teachers’ union protests that demanded higher pay. He was later released and found innocent of any wrongdoing.
“I did not publish details of an investigation, all I did was to cover teachers’ protests and arrest of protesters.
“Amending article 225 of the penal code is simply an attempt to scare journalists by adding detention as punishment. This is a dangerous narrowing of press freedom which undermines efforts for political reform.”
The amendment, passed by the House of Representatives, requires the approval of the Senate and the signature of the king to come into effect.
The new punishment is similar to the one stipulated in article 11 of the controversial cybercrime law, which criminalizes libel and slander with up to three months in prison.
But the cybercrime law has been denounced for targeting hundreds of political activists, journalists and regular citizens who have found themselves in jail or in front of a judge for expressing their political views on their social media accounts.
The new penalty targets anyone who publishes content on criminal investigation documents prior to their official announcement, sessions of secret and libel trials, and any trial in which the court issues a gag order.
Jordanian authorities have used gag orders in the past to quash discussion of issues that were of interest to Jordanians. The orders were not limited to banning the publication of investigations, but they included coverage of news stories such as the leaked Pandora Papers that exposed expensive real estate dealings of King Abdullah II.
A gag order also prohibited publishing news about the teacher’s union strike, as well as the court-mandated gag order on the alleged coup plot involving the king’s half-brother, former royal court chief Bassem Awadallah and an ex-envoy to Saudi Arabia, Sharif Hassan bin Zaid.