The Jordanian government appears to have backed down following an outcry over a proposed law that would discourage journalists from exposing corruption.
On Thursday, the lower house of parliament approved the draft law which is meant to combat corruption but also imposes fines of 30,...
Blog archive: Jordan
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2nd October 2011
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2nd June 2011A journalist in Jordan was sentenced to 14 days' imprisonment on Wednesday after reporting that a billionaire businessman jailed for corruption had been allowed to leave the country. Alaa Fazzaa, editor of a news website, khabarjo.net, was accused of "undermining the monarchy and...
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15th May 2011It was in February 1999 that King Abdullah II came to the throne in Jordan. The following July, Mohammed VI became king of Morocco, and a year later Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father as president of Syria. At the time, all three were hailed as a new generation of...
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6th April 2011Reporters in Jordan have been receiving phone calls and emails threatening physical harm unless they stop covering the reform movement in the kingdom, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. "The situation is no longer about censorship or repressive legislation – the...
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22nd January 2011The "Tunisia effect" continues. Several thousand protesters took to the streets of Jordan yesterday, for the second Friday in succession. More than 5,000 marched in the centre of Amman, with smaller demonstrations in several other cities, according toagency reports. The protesters are said to have...
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28th October 2010Ahead of next month's elections in Jordan, five people have been charged with vote-buying, the Jordan Times reports. Under the electoral law, they could face seven years in jail. The 2007 elections were marred by complaints of irregularities and this is the first time the Jordanian...
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21st August 2010With the Jordanian parliament dissolved since last November, the cabinet is continuing to issue "provisional" laws – a practice that is allowed by Article 94 of the constitution so long as the laws relate to "necessary measures which admit of no delay". One of these – though...
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26th July 2010A woman clad in hijab and lettuce leaves was arrested by Jordanian police and detained for three hours yesterday, for holding an unauthorised demonstration. The lone protester, Amina Tariq, carried a placard saying "Let vegetarianism grow on you". Vegetarianism is an unfamiliar...
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11th July 2010A 28-year-old woman was stabbed to death in a suburb of Amman yesterday – the eighth reported "honour" killing in Jordan so far this year. She is said to have been stabbed 16 times and her four brothers are being questioned by police, according to the Jordan Times. The paper quotes a...
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7th July 2010Four men were convicted yesterday in a multi-million-dollar bribery case involving expansion plans for Jordan's only oil refinery. Those convicted are: Adel Qudah, a former finance minister and former chairman of the Jordan Petroleum Refinery Company (JPRC) Ahmad Rifai,...
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22nd April 2010Education specialists in Jordan "have become increasingly outspoken" about continuing problems with school textbooks, according to The National. In 2003, recognising that the existing curriculum was inadequate for the needs of a modern society, Jordan launched an initiative "to...
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1st April 2010Jordan: Four prominent Jordanians appeared before the state security court on Wednesday at the start of what promises to be the kingdom's biggest-ever corruption trial. Reporters were banned from the courtroom during the two-hour hearing, which was then adjourned until April 5. The case,...
