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RR RUEHBC RUEHDE RUEHDH RUEHKUK RUEHROV
DE RUEHAM #2054/01 2530700
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R 100700Z SEP 09
FM AMEMBASSY AMMAN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 5910
INFO RUEHEE/ARAB LEAGUE COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 AMMAN 002054 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL CASC KWMN JO
SUBJECT: LET MY PEOPLE GO:  TRAVEL HOLDS IN JORDAN 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary:  Travel holds are the legal mechanism 
which allow Jordanian officials to prevent travelers from 
departing the country.  The legal framework for travel holds 
in Jordan is full of loopholes.  These allow abuses of the 
system which have the effect of restricting the travel of 
Jordanians and others, often with flimsy legal reasoning. 
Travel holds are generated by judges, prosecutors, and police 
officials, yet there is no uniform standard of evidence for 
their application.  It is difficult to challenge a travel 
hold, although temporary stays are often granted.  Border 
officials have little legal authority to overcome a hold. 
There is a significant gap between the legal authority to 
impose travel holds and their implementation in practice.  As 
a consequence, the Embassy's ability to assist American 
citizens is greatly impeded by the lack of a unified set of 
regulations and internal controls on their implementation. 
End Summary. 
 
Let My People Go 
---------------- 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Travel holds are a primary concern of Jordanian 
human rights lawyers, womens' rights activists, and the 
Embassy's own American Citizen Services unit.  While most of 
the travel holds issued by Jordanian courts and security 
authorities can be theoretically tied to a justification 
under Jordanian law, there are loopholes which allow for 
abuse of the system.  Inquiries about travel holds happen at 
least daily at the Embassy and account for a large volume of 
duty officer calls.  Lawyers on the Embassy's list say that 
they take on at least one travel hold case every week and 
advise many others informally on how the system works.  This 
cable lays out the system of travel holds in Jordan as a 
reference for the many instances in which they come into 
play, including apostasy cases, custody disputes involving 
American citizens, and cases involving the rights of women. 
 
Court-Ordered Travel Holds 
-------------------------- 
 
¶3.  (U) Most travel holds in Jordan are issued by judicial 
authorities, including criminal courts, civil courts, state 
security courts, and religious courts.  Civil and criminal 
courts can issue travel holds for many reasons, but typically 
do so to keep indicted criminals and key witnesses from 
fleeing the country.  State security courts routinely issue 
travel holds for indicted figures, but for most state 
security cases the defendants are already in detention, 
making a travel hold moot.  Religious courts (which are 
divided into shari'a courts for Muslims and church tribunals 
for Christians) can issue travel holds for cases involving 
custody of children, divorce settlements, alimony payments, 
or inheritance questions. 
 
¶4.  (U) Court-ordered travel holds are never automatic in 
Jordan.  They must be requested by either the defense or 
prosecution, who then must provide a justification to the 
presiding judge for discontinuing a citizen's ability to 
travel.  Travel holds on children involved in custody cases 
are considered a pro-forma exercise.  By law in Jordan, both 
parents have the right to visit their children for at least 
two hours per week, making the imposition of a travel hold a 
near certainty when custody is an issue.  Placing a travel 
hold in court on an adult without children is considerably 
more difficult.  When the custody of children is not an 
issue, judges will often ask for witnesses to explain why a 
travel hold is necessary. 
 
¶5.  (U) Prosecutors are also allowed to place travel holds 
without the assent of a judge.  They must provide a reason 
for doing so, but typically the required reasoning is far 
less than a judge would require.  According to police 
personnel we spoke to, most travel holds issued by 
prosecutors deal with financial disputes and would not hold 
water if challenged before a judge. 
 
¶6.  (U) Once a travel hold has been ordered by a court or 
prosecutor, the court clerk produces a writ which is 
transferred to the Public Security Directorate (PSD) office 
in the province where the court is located.  Each provincial 
PSD office has an "executive judgments" section which is 
responsible for enforcing court orders.  Once this office 
receives the order for a travel hold, they enter it into the 
PSD computer system, which is accessible at all police 
stations and border crossings in Jordan. 
 
Missing Persons Reports 
----------------------- 
 
¶7.  (U) Another way to effectively impose a travel hold in 
Jordan is to file a missing persons report.  Every police 
station in Jordan is equipped to handle reports of missing 
 
AMMAN 00002054  002 OF 003 
 
 
persons, which can be accomplished and entered into the PSD 
system within a matter of hours.  In order to file a missing 
persons report, the filer must be part of the missing 
person's immediate family (which includes aunts, uncles, and 
cousins in the Jordanian system), and there must have been no 
contact for a minimum of forty-eight hours.  The paperwork of 
a missing persons report requires a statement of 
circumstances.  The police are obliged to attempt to contact 
the subject of a missing persons report before entering it 
into the computer system.  According to police officials we 
talked to, that attempt usually goes no further than a call 
to the contact number provided by the filer of the report. 
 
¶8.  (U) Missing persons reports become effective travel holds 
once they are entered into the police database.  Unlike 
court-ordered travel holds, however, they appear in the PSD 
system as a "request to appear" at the police station that 
filed the report rather than as a court-ordered writ which 
specifically prevents travel.  Such "requests to appear" are 
a common administrative and legal procedure in Jordan, and 
are not confined to missing persons cases.  Citizens can be 
officially "requested to appear" for other reasons such as 
tax payment issues, vehicle accidents, or simple requests for 
information from government agencies. 
 
Challenging Travel Holds 
------------------------ 
 
¶9.  (U) Travel holds issued by a judge can be challenged once 
they are in place, but it is a difficult and time-consuming 
process.  Since the courts require a justification before 
imposing a travel hold, a similar justification must be 
offered if it is to be removed.  The courts often require new 
information or a compelling reason to lift a travel hold 
permanently, but such cases are rare and subject to overturn 
on appeal.  Even when travel holds are lifted by the courts, 
the opposing party will often attempt to impose a 
prosecutorial travel hold in its place.  Travel holds imposed 
by prosecutors can also be challenged in court, but it rarely 
happens in practice.  Since prosecutor-ordered travel holds 
typically deal with smaller issues, they are usually resolved 
through the mediation of a family member or by prosecutors 
themselves. 
 
¶10.  (U) While lifting a court-ordered travel hold 
permanently can be difficult, temporary lifting of a hold for 
specific trips is more common.  Medical necessity, family 
emergencies, or even financial obligations can be offered as 
reasons for a one time only lifting of travel holds, with the 
understanding that the trip will be limited in time.  The one 
catch to a temporary lifting of a travel hold is that courts 
and prosecutors often require a bond or other financial 
guarantee from the person who wishes to travel, particularly 
in divorce cases, inheritance disputes, and other legal 
actions involving financial issues. 
 
¶11.  (U) Missing persons reports cannot be challenged per se, 
they can only be resolved.  Once a person reported as missing 
appears at the police station where the report was filed, it 
is automatically lifted and the person is then theoretically 
free to travel.  In practice, however, police often detain 
those who attempt to resolve missing persons reports and 
require family members to appear at the police station to 
annul the report. 
 
¶12.  (U) If the reasoning behind a travel hold (whether 
issued by a court or as a missing persons report) is 
purposely falsified, it can place the requester of a travel 
hold in legal jeopardy.  Police officials who regularly 
implement travel holds told us that the subject of a travel 
hold can countersue if they can prove that a false statement 
led to the improper placement of a travel hold.  The penalty 
for such an offense can result in up to three months in jail. 
 
Travel Holds at the Border 
-------------------------- 
 
¶13.  (U) When the subject of a travel hold attempts to cross 
a border, the PSD system will alert the immigration official 
to a hit on the person's record.  In the case of a 
court-ordered travel hold, a citation of the writ and its 
contents appear in the system.  Missing persons reports 
appear with varying levels of detail as to the circumstances 
of their filing, but always contain contact information from 
the police station which entered the report into the system. 
In the case of a court-ordered travel hold, the immigration 
official has no room for maneuver -- the person's ability to 
leave the country is restricted, and the law does not allow 
for further interpretation. 
 
¶14.  (SBU) In the case of missing persons, however, 
immigration officials have several possible ways of dealing 
 
AMMAN 00002054  003 OF 003 
 
 
with the situation.  The most common reaction to a missing 
persons report at the border is to place the person under 
preventive custody and contact the police station that filed 
the report.  The police usually then contact the missing 
person's relatives and determine a course of action 
accordingly.  Immigration officials also have the discretion 
to disregard the report and let a person reported as missing 
travel, however.  According to police officials, this happens 
most often when a reasonable explanation can be offered as to 
why the report was either a mistake or a deliberate abuse of 
the system. 
 
Lifting Travel Holds 
-------------------- 
 
¶15.  (U) Once a court case has been resolved and a travel 
hold is no longer necessary, judges will send an official 
notification ("kef talab" in Arabic) to the PSD ordering an 
end to the hold.  The kef talab is issued to the subject of 
the hold, who must then deliver it in person to the PSD 
branch which entered the hold in the system.  The subjects of 
travel holds retain a copy of the kef talab to present at the 
border if necessary during their next trip outside of the 
country.  Lawyers and NGO activists we talked to complained 
that travel holds are not always lifted promptly by PSD, and 
sometimes require a great deal of follow-up to make sure that 
they are enforced. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶16.  (SBU) While there are established practices and legal 
norms that govern the use of travel holds in Jordan, in 
practice the system often falls under the influence of 
traditional family and tribal connections ("wasta").  One 
family member in PSD who is willing to enter a travel hold 
into the system can trump a series of court orders or 
benevolent immigration officials.  The lack of internal 
controls on the placement of travel holds frequently results 
in families exerting undue influence on the ability of women 
and dual nationals to travel. 
 
¶17.  (SBU) Travel holds in Jordan are a pernicious issue that 
frequently result in complicated American Citizen Services 
cases.  The Embassy's ability to assist American citizens is 
greatly impeded by the lack of a unified set of regulations 
on travel holds and lack of oversight in their 
implementation.  While our connections within PSD can help 
determine the status of a travel hold, we cannot remove 
travel holds on behalf of American citizens or dual 
nationals.  This often creates difficult situations where our 
need to assist American citizens runs counter to the 
Jordanian legal system. 
Beecroft