New York, December 27, 2020—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the Jordanian authorities to release Jamal Haddad, publisher of the news website Alwakaai, and condemns the use of a national security prosecution to censor coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic. On December 24, Haddad was summoned and detained pending investigation under the country’s anti-terrorism law…
New York, August 27, 2020 — Jordanian authorities should immediately release cartoonist Emad Hajjaj, drop all charges against him, and let him work freely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Yesterday, a police patrol arrested Hajjaj, a cartoonist for the Qatari-funded news website Al-Araby al-Jadeed, on the Jordan Valley road while the cartoonist was…
New York, June 1, 2020 — Jordanian authorities should immediately release Bangladeshi journalist Selim Akash and drop any charges against him, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. On April 14, three men in plainclothes arrested Akash, a reporter for the Bangladeshi satellite broadcaster BanglaTV and news website Jago News, in front of his house…
New York, April 10, 2020 — In response to Jordanian authorities’ arrest of Fares Sayegh, general manager of the privately owned satellite station Roya TV, and Mohammad Alkhalidi, the channel’s news director, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement:
Beginning on March 17, 2020, authorities in Jordan, Oman, Morocco, and Yemen issued decrees suspending newspaper printing and distribution in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to news reports and government statements.
On March 14, 2020, Amman Public Prosecutor Hassan al-Sarhan ordered the arrest of freelance Jordanian journalist Hiba Abu Taha on charges of slander and undermining the government, briefly held her in custody, and then released her on bail and told her to return the next day, according to a report by the Skeyes Center for…
Beirut, January 17, 2019–The Committee to Protect Journalists today condemned the imprisonment of Nidal Salameh, a journalist for the website Gerasa News, who was convicted of violating Jordan’s Press and Publications Law and the Cybercrime Law.
An Amman prosecutor on December 10, 2018, ordered the arrest of Mohammad al-Wakeel, the publisher and editor-in-chief of the news website Al-Wakeel News, and intern editor Ghadir al-Rabihat on charges of inciting sectarian strife after a complaint was filed over an altered image of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” on the site’s Facebook account,…
Recently proposed amendments to Jordan’s 2015 cybercrime law, including a vague and broad definition of hate speech, will further stifle press freedom on the pretext of protecting the country’s citizens, and could result in further self-censorship, several Jordanian journalists told CPJ.