VZCZCXRO8618
RR RUEHROV
DE RUEHAM #4325/01 2980405
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 250405Z OCT 07
FM AMEMBASSY AMMAN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0694
INFO RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 AMMAN 004325 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR NEA/ELA, NEA/PPD, IIP/GNEA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: JO KPAO KMDR PGOV
SUBJECT: Jordanian Media Accused of Publication Offenses 
 
REF: a. AMMAN 4158 
b. AMMAN 1410 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED - NOT FOR INTERNET DISTRIBUTION. 
 
¶1. (U) Summary:  Two newspaper editors accused of publication 
offenses were recently questioned by Jordanian prosecutors.  If 
indicted, they would be the first such cases since the amendment of 
the main press law passed by parliament in the spring which 
eliminated some categories of forbidden subjects.  The GoJ says it 
is enforcing the law in the run-up to parliamentary elections next 
month, while media observers express concern that anti-government 
journalists are being targeted.  End summary. 
 
¶2.  (U) The GOJ censor, officially known as the Press and 
Publications Department, filed civil and criminal complaints early 
this month with the state's prosecutor-general against the editors 
of two weekly newspapers, Al-Majd and As-Sabeel.  According to news 
reports, the complaints allege that the editors published content 
harmful to state interests.  On October 4, the two editors appeared 
before the prosecutor for questioning.  To date, no indictments have 
been issued, though the investigation remains ongoing. 
 
THE ACCUSED 
 
¶3.  (U) Al-Majd is an independent, weekly newspaper that adopts an 
Arab nationalist slant strongly critical of U.S. policy.  In 2006, 
Al-Majd published an article about arms smuggling to Hamas which 
resulted in the newspaper's temporary suspension and the detention 
of chief editor Fahed Rimawi by security services.  In mid-September 
this year, Al-Majd published a critical article under the headline 
"Let the Cardboard Governments Go."  Rimawi told As-Sabeel newspaper 
October 9 that the article advocated "changing the pattern of 
government formation" in order to make future governments more 
representative of Jordan's "political spectrum."  According to the 
censor's complaint, the article "overstepp[ed] legal and 
professional bounds" resulting in harm to "homeland, state, and 
national constants." 
 
¶4.  (U) As-Sabeel is an independent, weekly newspaper aligned with 
the Islamic Action Front (IAF), the political arm of Jordan's Muslim 
Brotherhood.  A legal entity, the IAF is the largest opposition bloc 
in the parliament.  Islamist candidates are contesting seats in 
parliamentary elections scheduled in late November.  On October 1, 
As-Sabeel published a poem written by Ayman Atoum, the son of former 
Islamist member of parliament Ali Atoum, who was the victim of a 
physical assault this summer by unknown individuals.  The younger 
Atoum said his poem was a response to his father's victimization. 
Under the headline "O Purest of Peoples" (a play on a traditional 
honorific bestowed on the Prophet Mohammad), the poem expressed "the 
Arab citizen's concerns and the status quo of freedoms in the Arab 
world," said Atoum.  The censor's complaint says it "clearly harms 
the homeland and national interests." 
 
THE RAP 
 
¶5. (SBU) The Press and Publications Department confirmed to IO that 
the prosecutor-general is considering indictments under the penal 
code - historically the primary basis for prosecution of publication 
offenses - and the press and publications law.  Director of the 
Press and Publications Department Hussein Bani Hani identified to IO 
the specific provisions under consideration, the most serious of 
which is lese-majeste("insulting the monarch"), a lesser form of 
treason.  Other possible provisions include incitement of sectarian 
prejudice and defamation of the government.  The crimes of 
lese-majeste and incitement are the jurisdiction of the State 
Security Court, which hears all matters relating to national 
security. 
 
¶6. (SBU) The indictments would be the first such cases this year, 
and the first since the passage of an amended press law which 
reduced the categories of publication offenses (ref B).  Bani Hani 
emphasized to IO that the timing of the complaints, six weeks before 
parliamentary elections, was coincidental.  He also described the 
legal impact as "procedural" in the view of the Press and 
Publications Department.  Bani Hani's description was echoed in the 
mild reaction of the head of the Jordan Press Association, the 
government-sanctioned journalist union: Tareq Momani told Al-Ghad 
newspaper October 5 that he considered the cases "ethical 
violations," and declined to criticize the Press and Publication 
Department's actions. 
 
THE CRITICS 
 
¶7.  (SBU) Other media observers are expressing concern in public and 
private that the government and its six media regulatory agencies 
are flexing their muscles in order to intimidate journalists opposed 
to the government.  Attorney Mohammad Quteishat, the head of the 
Legal Assistance Unit at the Center for Defending Freedom of 
 
AMMAN 00004325  002 OF 002 
 
 
Journalists (CDFJ), told IO that the total number of complaints 
filed by the Press and Publictions censor against journalists over 
the past year equals the total number filed over the three preceding 
years put together.  Quteishat also observed that the allegations 
over the past year are comparatively more serious in nature, and so 
carry heavier penalties and longer jail terms.  Moreover, defendants 
from weekly periodicals are particularly susceptible to financial 
loss and bankruptcy as a result of lengthy pre-trial and trial 
proceedings, notwithstanding the relatively greater burdens of proof 
on the prosecutor.  Given these circumstances, Quteishat believes 
that the government is making a show of force, targeting independent 
and weekly periodicals which eschew a pro-government bias. 
 
¶8.  (U) Quteishat's concerns have been articulated in the press. 
Al-Hadath newspaper, an independent Arabic weekly aligned with the 
CDFJ, published an article October 8 by veteran journalist Bassam 
Badareen, in which he wrote, "[G]overnment sources last week stated 
clearly that they can 'discipline' reporters in many ways.... 
Subsequently, the Press and Publications Department started to move, 
after a long period of dormancy.  What happened was clear: an 
unblessed return to the fashion of filing lawsuits in the 
government's name against journalists, referring a number of 
newspapers to court, expanding inspections of legal files, filing a 
lawsuit against a veteran reporter like Fahed Al-Rimawi for an 
article criticizing the government, the likes of which he had 
published numerous times in the past."  Mainstream broadsheets have 
also criticized the complaint against Al-Majd, including a column 
published October 6 in the independent, opposition Arabic daily 
Al-Arab Al-Yawm, under the headline "Freedom of the Press: Worrisome 
Indicators from the Government," and another published October 20 in 
the same daily titled "Press Freedoms Are Backtracking - The Ills of 
the Half-Democracy." 
 
¶9.  (SBU) Comment:  Jordan's leadership has reiterated its blue-sky 
commitment to unrestricted press freedoms three times in the last 
three weeks.  Meanwhile, the exercise of media expression remains 
subject to ground-level trial and error as stakeholders strive for a 
durable balance between rights and responsibilities under Jordanian 
law.  End comment. 
 
HALE