AMMAN —
Human Rights Watch (HRW)
expressed concerns about the human rights situation in Jordan in 2022,
referencing “vague” provisions, circumventions, and undue extensions of the law
that were “used” by the authorities to suppress freedoms and impinge on the
legal rights of citizens, women, and refugees.
اضافة اعلان
The criticism came in the HRW "World Report
2023", issued on Thursday, in which the organization reviewed human rights
practices in approximately 100 countries for the year 2022, AmmanNet reported.
Here are some of the detailed concerns
outlined in the Jordan-focused section of the report:
Suppression of free speech
In September of last year, HRW issued a
separate report showing how the Jordanian authorities employed “vague and
overly broad criminal laws to suppress free speech and other freedoms”,
according to the report.
In 2020, the number of cases relating to
such charges nearly doubled from 2019 figures, according to the National Center
for Human Rights (NCHR) annual reports.
In March of 2022, the Jordanian authorities
detained
Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian-American journalist and director general
of the Community Media Network in Amman, and journalist Taghreed Al-Rishq, both
over publications and statements they had issued, according to AmmanNet.
Furthermore, the report said that the
authorities instated several “arbitrary” press gag orders last year regarding
various developments in the Kingdom.
Freedom of assembly
According to the Public Gatherings Law,
amended in March 2011, Jordan allows free public meetings and demonstrations
without government approval. However, the authorities last year obligated many
organizations to obtain permission from official bodies to host events, the
report stated.
The Jordanian authorities employed “vague and overly broad criminal laws to suppress free speech and other freedoms."
Meanwhile, the report said, freedom of
association was restricted under certain Jordanian laws, among them the
Labor Law of 1966, which regulates the free formation of trade unions, and the
Associations Law of 2008, which regulates nongovernmental groups.
In addition, the “Jordanian authorities
impose onerous pre-approval restrictions on the receipt of foreign funding by
NGOs”, the report said. It cited an example from last September when the local
NGO, the
Community Media Network, registered a complaint with the NCHR over the
authorities blocking a JD25,000 grant from the German development agency for
the NGO to launch a recycling awareness campaign.
Refugees and migrants
As Jordan hosted over 750,000 refugees in
2022, according to the report, the Kingdom’s authorities continued enforcing a
decision from 2019 that prevented the UNHCR from registering as asylum seekers
anyone who entered the country for medical treatment, study, tourism, or work,
“effectively barring recognition of non-Syrians as refugees and leaving many
without UNHCR documentation or access to services”.
Syrian refugees were granted new legal
employment opportunities through the continued implementation of the 2016
Jordan Compact between the Jordanian government and donor countries. However,
most professions remained closed to non-Jordanians, and, despite the issuance
and renewal of thousands of work permits, many Syrians were employed as
informal workers.
Meanwhile, an estimated 80,000 migrant
domestic workers lived and worked in the Kingdom in 2022, primarily hailing
from the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia. NGOs referred many physical and
work-related abuses and violations committed toward these workers to government
labor teams.
Women’s rights
In terms of women’s rights, “Jordan’s
personal status code remains discriminatory, despite amendments in 2019,” the
report said, pointing out that women in Jordan require a male guardian’s
permission to marry and travel abroad with their children.
Despite laws to the contrary, the report
said, “authorities sometimes comply with requests from male guardians to bar
their unmarried adult daughters, wives, and children from leaving the country”.
Furthermore, under the Crime Prevention
Law, women may be arrested if they flee their homes and are reported by their
male guardians.
Although Article 98 of Jordan’s penal code,
amended in 2017, states that the “fit of fury” defense does not permit
mitigated sentences for perpetrators of so-called “honor crimes”, judges did
impose some mitigated sentences under a separate article last year if the
families of the victims did not prosecute the perpetrators. (In a “fit of fury”
defense, the perpetrator may blame an action on rage rooted in the victim’s own
actions).
Furthermore, under Article 340 of the penal
code, a man may receive a reduced sentence if he kills or attacks any female
relative, including his wife, during an alleged act of adultery on her part.
“Such discriminatory laws leave women
exposed to violence,” the report said.
Following several public killings of women,
including the stabbing of a woman by her husband in Karak, Jordanian women
gathered in July 2022 to protest outside Parliament for enhanced legislation to
counter
gender-based violence and more transparent accountability for those who
commit such violence.
Criminal justice
Debt imprisonment is illegal under
international law, leaving Jordan one of only a few global countries that
imprison people for debt. However, the Kingdom’s Parliament in 2022 passed
amendments to the law that mandates debt imprisonment, which marked an
improvement but did not completely do away with the practice, the report stated.
As of the beginning of April last year, at
least 148,000 were wanted for prison terms for unpaid debts, according to the
Justice Ministry.
Meanwhile, administrative detention
remained an issue in 2022, with local governors using provisions of the Crime
Prevention Law of 1954 to hold people in administrative detention for up to one
year. This step circumvents the Kingdom’s Criminal Procedure Law.
According to the NCHR, 21,322 persons were
administratively detained in 2020 — some for longer than one year. Despite this
high number of detentions, 2020 marked a “dramatic” decrease from the previous
year, which saw 37,853 administrative detentions, the report noted.
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