Human rights in Jordan are similar to or better than in most other Middle Eastern countries. Human Rights Watch reported in January 2018 that although recently there have been far-reaching reforms of the laws and regulations in the country, abuses against basic rights such as freedom of expression persisted.
According to Freedom House, Jordan is ranked as the fifth-freest Arab country, but still regarded as "not free" in the 2021 report. It is also classified as having an authoritarian regime according to a 2020 democracy index.
History The 2011 Jordanian protests began in the wake of unrest in Tunisia and Egypt. Starting in January 2011, several thousand Jordanians staged weekly demonstrations and marches in Amman (the capital) and other cities to protest government corruption, rising prices, poverty, and high unemployment. In response, King Abdullah II replaced his prime minister and formed a National Dialogue Commission with a mandate to carry out reforms. The king told the new prime minister to "take quick, concrete, and practical steps to launch a genuine political reform process," "to strengthen democracy," and to provide Jordanians with the "dignified life they deserve." He called for an "immediate revision" of laws governing politics and public freedoms. Since then, reports have shown good initial results but much work remaining to be done."Jordan: A Measure of Reform", Christoph Wilcke, Jordan Times, 8 March 2011
The 2010 Arab Democracy Index from the Arab Reform Initiative ranked Jordan first in the state of democratic reforms out of fifteen Arab countries.
On 3 April 2021 a series of arrests were carried out. The Jordanian authorities arrested 19 people, including Prince Hamzah, who was put under house arrest. Arrests also included the prince's chief of staff and other figures associated with him, in addition to a member of the royal family, Sharif Hassan bin Zaid, and Bassem Awadallah, former Chief of the Royal Hashemite Court and Jordan's former envoy to Saudi Arabia.
Democracy Jordan is a semi-constitutional monarchy ruled by King Abdullah II bin Hussein. The constitution concentrates executive and legislative authority in the king.
Jordan has a bicameral legislature, the National Assembly, consisting of an upper house, the Assembly of Senators, appointed by the king and an elected lower house, the Chamber of Deputies. The members of both houses hold office for four-year terms. There are 60 seats in the Senate and 120 in the Chamber of Deputies. In the Chamber of Deputies 12 seats are reserved for women, 9 seats for Christian candidates, 9 for Bedouin candidates, and 3 for Jordanians of Chechen or Circassian descent. The Assembly of Senators is responsible to the Chamber of Deputies and can be dismissed by "a vote of no confidence". The king may dissolve the National Assembly, forcing new elections. King Abdullah did that on 24 November 2009, and the government ruled by decree through most of 2010, until new elections were held in November. Parliamentary elections have been deemed credible by international observers. The king signs and executes all laws, but his veto power can be overridden by two-thirds vote of the National Assembly. The judicial branch is completely independent. Security forces report to civilian authorities.
The law does not provide citizens the right to change their monarch or government. The king appoints and dismisses the prime minister, cabinet, the Assembly of Senators, and judges, may dissolve parliament, commands the military, and directs major public policy initiatives. The cabinet, based on the prime minister's recommendation, appoints the mayors of Amman, Wadi Musa (Petra), and Aqaba, a special economic zone. The mayors of the other 93 municipalities are elected.
Jordan ranked sixth among the 19 countries in the Middle East and North Africa region, and 50th out of 178 countries worldwide in the 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) issued by Transparency International, where 1st is the least corrupt."Corruption Perceptions Index 2010 Results" , Transparency International Jordan's 2010 CPI score was 4.7 on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 10 (very clean). Jordan ratified the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) in February 2005"Signatories to the United Nations Convention against Corruption", United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 1 May 2011 and has been a regional leader in spearheading efforts to promote the UNCAC and its implementation.
Freedom of the press The Jordanian constitution provides for freedom of speech and of the press; however, the government does not fully respect these rights in practice."Section 2(a) Freedom of Speech and Press, 2010 Human Rights Report: Jordan", Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department of State, 8 April 2011 In its 2009 annual report the Amman-based National Center for Defending the Freedom of Journalists (CDFJ) concluded that media freedoms deteriorated in 2009."Center for Defending the Freedom of Journalists", website
In the 2010 Press Freedom Index maintained by Reporters Without Borders, Jordan ranked 120th out of 178 countries listed, 5th out of the 20 countries in the Middle East and North Africa region. Jordan's score was 37 on a scale from 0 (most free) to 105 (least free).Press Freedom Index 2010 , Reporters Without Borders, 20 October 2010
The law provides for up to three years' imprisonment for insulting the king, slandering the government or foreign leaders, offending religious beliefs, or stirring sectarian strife and sedition. In practice citizens are generally able to criticize the government, although they reportedly exercise caution in regard to the king, the royal family, the General Intelligence Directorate (GID), and other sensitive topics such as religion.
The government continues to enforce bans on the publication of selected books for religious, moral, and political reasons, some foreign films are edited prior to release, and the media is directly and indirectly censored. Authorities monitor and censor printing presses and edit articles deemed offensive before they can be printed. Journalists claim the government uses informants in newsrooms and that GID officials monitor reporting. Editors reportedly receive telephone calls from security officials instructing them how to cover events or to refrain from covering certain topics or events. Government officials also reportedly bribe journalists to influence their reporting. Media observers note that when covering controversial subjects, government-owned Jordan Radio and Television and Jordan News Agency reported only the government's position.
Journalists report that the threat of detention and imprisonment under the penal code for a variety of offenses, and stringent fines of as much as 20,000 dinars ($28,000) under the press and publications law for defamation leads to self-censorship. According to a 2009 Center for Defending the Freedom of Journalists survey, 95 percent of journalists polled exercised self-censorship. The survey also reported that 70 percent of journalists thought the government used "soft containment", such as financial support, scholarships for relatives, and special invitations, to control the media at a medium to high degree. Ninety-four percent said they avoid writing about or broadcasting military matters, and 83 percent said they avoid discussing religious topics.
There were several instances in which the government prohibited journalists from reporting on high-profile court cases. For example, a State Security Court attorney general prohibited the press from reporting or commenting on the case of the Jordan Petroleum Refinery Company expansion project without his personal approval, purportedly to allow the judicial authorities to work "calmly" on the case.
The clash between Jordanian media and the Lower House has been a chronic struggle for decades. The state of press freedom in Jordan is very fickle, at one point Jordan had one of the most vocal media in the Arab World, but a series of laws passed by Parliament greatly restricted press freedom. The Jordanian media has been very vocal expressing its opposition towards Parliament often leading to clashes. One Jordanian journalist wrote a fiery article called "For God Sake, Abdullah", in which he called on King Abdullah to dissolve the corrupt Lower House."Jordan's news websites running for legal cover" , Oula Farawati, Menassat, 11 March 2009 He was prosecuted by the Lower House, but was later acquitted by the judiciary.
In October 2001, the government amended the Penal Code and introduced a restrictive Press Law that effectively revokes the relative freedom of the press guaranteed by the 1993 Press Law and punishes any act that can be deemed critical of the Jordanian government. Anyone who "slanders" the King or other members of the royal family can be sentenced to three years imprisonment. The introduction of these new laws has led to the detention and imprisonment of several journalists and leaders of peaceful associations.
In May 2006, two journalists involved in reprinting three of the 12 Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons were issued a two-month prison sentence. Jordan was the only Muslim country to reprint the Danish cartoons depicting the Muhammed in one of its newspapers. The two Jordanian editors responsible were sacked and pressured to issue a public apology.
According to Human Rights Watch, Jordanian authorities has used counterterrorism laws to prosecute activists, dissidents, journalists and Islamic preachers for speech offenses, the authorities depends largely on counterterrorism law that extended the definition of terrorism to include acts such as disturbing Jordan's relations with a foreign state. In February, a senior Muslim Brotherhood figure, Zaki Bani Irsheid, was sentenced to 18 months in prison after a post on Facebook criticizing the United Arab Emirates. In June, Eyad Qunaibi, an Islamic preacher, was arrested after posting Facebook comments criticizing the liberal lifestyle of a segment of the Jordanian society and the Jordan cooperation with Israel.
Jordan is listed as engaged in selective internet filtering in the political area and as showing no evidence of filtering in the social, conflict/security, and Internet tools areas by the OpenNet Initiative (ONI) in August 2009. Internet censorship in Jordan is relatively light, with filtering selectively applied to only a small number of sites. However, media laws and regulations encourage some measure of self-censorship in cyberspace, and citizens have reportedly been questioned and arrested for Web content they have authored. Internet censorship in Jordan is mainly focused on political issues that might be seen as a threat to national security due to the nation's close proximity to regional hotspots of Israel, Iraq, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories."ONI Country Profile: Jordan", OpenNet Initiative, 6 August 2009
In 2013, however, the Press and Publications Department initiated a ban on Jordanian news websites which had not registered and been licensed by government agency. The order issued to Telecommunication Regulatory Commission contained a list of over 300 websites to be blocked. The mandatory registration of websites was a part of amendments made to the Press and Publications Law in September 2012. The amendments included articles that would hold online news sites accountable for the comments left by their readers, prohibiting them from publishing comments that are deemed "irrelevant" or "unrelated" to the article. The restriction caused several prominent sites to turn off their comments sections. Online news sites are required to archive all comments for at least six months. One of the blocked sites was 7iber, which could not register as a news site because the Jordan Press Association does not credential online journalists.