Law curbing internet speech shocks Jordanians. Will king step in?

Jordan, long a West-friendly outlier in a troubled region, may soon have the most restricted internet and speech in the Arab world.

A cybercrime law that conservative elements in the king’s hand-picked government introduced just last month – and are pushing quickly to passage – is being flagged by detractors as a “legislative coup.”

They say it contains vague language that could curb speech and internet freedoms, creating a “throwback to martial law days.”

The legislation was passed by Jordan’s Parliament last week and by the unelected Senate, which made minor revisions, on Tuesday. It is expected to land on the monarch’s desk by early next week, a pen stroke away from becoming law.

By threatening to sabotage King Abdullah’s promised democratic reforms, the legislation is placing the monarch at the center of Jordanians’ struggle for rights and freer speech.

How he responds will be for many liberal Jordanians the final word on whether Jordan is heading toward democratic reform or full autocracy.

Although Jordanians are barred from insulting the king in public, they have enjoyed the freedom to criticize and lampoon king-appointed governments and public officials, freedoms that grew with the spread of the internet and social media over the past 15 years and were taken for granted by many as a right.

New government tool

The draft cybercrime law is an update of an existing law and provides the government with new tools it says it needs to protect the kingdom from hacking, cyberterrorism, cyberbullying, and pornography.

In interviews with local media, the king-appointed Prime Minister Bisher Khasawneh has pledged that the law will not curb freedoms and serves to “protect the public,” insisting the government is open to criticism.

But, legal experts warn, that criticism may soon land you in jail.

Several articles in the 40-article bill deal with online expression, criminalizing – without defining – such things as “fake news,” “character assassination,” “hate speech,” and “contempt of religions.”

If the legislation is signed into law, anyone could be held criminally liable for posting, reposting, or “liking” speech the government deems to fit these categories. The law holds individuals legally responsible for comments left by others on their posts, social media pages, or websites – even on past posts that others flag anew.

The law gives the government the authority to detain a suspect for up to a year before trial.

Mohammad Qteishat, a legal expert and former director of the Jordan Media Commission, which regulates the media, says the law is an assault on speech and expression “in violation of the Jordanian constitution.”

“The text is very flexible. You cannot find explanations for these terms in the law,” says Mr. Qteishat, who terms the law a tool for widening government authority.

“This will protect the government, the prime minister, and governmental departments from criticism,” he says, “and gives the general prosecutor the ability to sue anyone who criticizes the government.”

As of this writing, it is not clear whether this article would be criminalized.

Impact on reforms

The law requires any social media platform, website, or app that has 100,000 or more Jordanian users or followers to open an office in Jordan and submit to regulations. Failure to comply allows the government to severely restrict sites’ internet bandwidth, a tactic already used by security services to disrupt Facebook Live and other livestreaming apps in times of protests.

“They want Jordan’s media silent [just as in] any other Arab autocratic state,” says Nidal Mansour, of the Amman-based Center for Defending Freedom of Journalists.

The law also deals with what some Jordanians are calling a “deathblow” to the king-ordered political reforms launched last year to win over an apathetic and skeptical public, such as allowing political activism on university campuses, encouraging young people to join political parties, and allowing political parties to take part in government.

Pro-palace reformists say they have been “blindsided.”

“We have been fighting like hell to convince Jordanians that this time the king and the state are serious about reforms and that they should take part in political life,” says one, requesting anonymity. “Who is ever going to take part in public life now? We will have lost Jordanians’ trust for generations.”

The government rushed this bill through an extraordinary summer session of Parliament while many prominent figures are outside the country and much of the international community is consumed with the war in Ukraine and the political crisis in neighboring Israel.

The U.S. State Department offered a rare criticism of Jordan last week, noting that “this type of law, with vague definitions and concepts, could undermine Jordan’s homegrown economic and political reform efforts.”

Pro-palace reformists are even more blunt.

“How can we claim we are moving towards democracy?” says a former culture minister, Mohammed Abu Rumman.

Economic cost

The law will likely impact the kingdom’s local tech industry and the thousands of Jordanian computer engineers who work remotely for international companies and collectively manage the majority of Arabic online content.

“If you are pursuing a law like this, you are not encouraging companies to come here and work,” says Issa Mahasneh, director of Jordan Open Source Association, a Jordanian nonprofit that advocates for tech users’ rights.

“This creates so much uncertainty. If I have a food-delivery app, am I now legally liable for bad restaurant reviews left by users?” he said. “This will impact both free speech and the IT [information technology] sector.”

The biggest cost, former officials and economists say, is to the Economic Modernization Vision, the grand strategy to save Jordan’s floundering economy formed by hundreds of businesspeople and experts from 2021 to 2022 at the behest of King Abdullah.

The vision calls for attracting $60 billion in foreign and local investment over a decade to finance thousands of startups and initiatives and create 1 million jobs for Jordanians.

“You are stopping Jordanians from being part of global initiatives, and you are dissuading investors from coming to Jordan,” says Maen Qatamin, former minister of investment and economist. “On what basis are you going to attract $60 billion of investment in a climate of oppression?”

Majdi, an unemployed business administration major seeking an investor for a startup business, says he attended his first-ever protest last Friday against the law.

“Once this law is passed, none of us will be able to criticize an official for failing to live up to their duty or [critique] a failed policy or even the economy,” says Majdi, whose name was changed for legal protection. “We will all pay the price with our future.”

Domestic power play

With such broad opposition, why is the government rushing the law to passage? Observers say the motivations are domestic and reflect fear.

The kingdom is facing 24% unemployment and 40% youth unemployment. Its central bank is raising interest rates alongside the U.S. Federal Reserve to keep the Jordanian dinar pegged to the U.S. dollar.

Jordan is expected to negotiate a new International Monetary Fund loan at the end of 2023, which may require unpopular measures such as lifting water, electricity, or wheat subsidies.

“We are in the middle of a serious economic crisis,” says Oraib Rintawi, a former member of a royal political reform committee. “When you don’t have solid things to offer the public to convince them that the future will be better, one alternative is restriction and ignoring people’s concerns and criticisms. It’s a protective but destructive measure.”

Former lawmakers and observers also say the law is driven by hard-line and autocratic elements who are chafing at public criticism and wish to claw back speech gains and protect their economic and political interests from scrutiny.

“These individuals want to take us back to the era before internet, before social media, before the IT revolution,” says former Parliament member Rula Hroob, a founder of the Labor Party and promoter of political reforms. “They are trying to put every single Jordanian into a time machine and send us back 20 years.”

Former officials and members of Parliament say the law will “make it impossible” for reformist, opposition, and independent candidates to discuss issues or gain a following, ensuring that conservatives and security services dominate Parliament and future governments.

“Instead of releasing pressure from this pressure cooker, you are closing the valve, turning up the heat, and making it boil,” warns Mr. Qatamin, the former investment minister.

Last hope: the king’s pen

State-controlled media outlets and those pressured by the government have so far glossed over the cybercrime law’s impact on speech freedoms, leaving most Jordanians unaware of the full impact.

Legal experts, reformists, journalists, and young Jordanians say their last hope is an intervention by King Abdullah, to either reject the law or demand it is amended.

On Monday evening, the Arabic hashtags #the_cybercrime_law_is_against_the_king’s_vision and #the_king_is_protector_of_freedoms were trending in Jordan.

“This is a chance for the king to stand with the people against those who would destroy his reforms and the economy,” says one former minister.

“If His Majesty returns the law, it will be a victory for civil society and it will encourage reformists within the state to continue pushing,” adds Mr. Abu Rumman.

But an approval of the law, some Jordanians claim, would expose the king’s reform promises as hollow – and put the country on the path to autocracy.  

“All we want to do is to build, innovate, and give back to our country,” says Majdi, the business major, “and now we are being stopped.”