2023 cybercrime law in Jordan

Although the government's intentions were to combat online crimes and protect societal interests, the swift passage of this law without public debate or dialogue with political parties and civil society organizations has raised significant concerns among various stakeholders.

Critics, including legal experts, human rights advocates, and members of the Jordanian parliament, argue that the law's vague terminology and severe penalties undermine freedom of speech and expression.

The broad and ambiguous language used in the law's provisions has led to fears of increased censorship and arbitrary enforcement, further fueling public dissent and protests against the government's approach to regulating online activity.

[16] In the context of multiple prosecutions of critical writers and journalists, such as the Jordanian satirist Ahmad Hasan Al Zoubi, this law was enacted.

[17] However, according to Prime Minister, Bisher Al Khasawneh, the law's enactment was necessary to combat online crimes that violated people's privacy and caused societal friction.

Similarly, the board of the Jordan Press Association issued an official statement expressing its rejection of several amendments to the Draft Cybercrime Law, and stated that “it contributes to silencing people and restricting press and public freedoms.” Hundreds of people went out to the streets on Friday 28 July 2023, to protest the cybercrime draft law and called for the government to resign.

[38] The European Union issued a statement maintaining that the provisions of the law "depart from international human rights standards and could result in limiting freedom of expression online and offline".

[40] Lorena Stella Martini, Jordan researcher at the European Council on Foreign Relations, maintained, "the new law de facto criminalizes the online activities of the Jordanian LGBTQ community, with broad repercussions on offline life as a whole".

[43] The same goes for other vague terms such as “expose public morals,” “debauchery,” and “seduction” which are listed in Article 14, allow for abuse, and could easily restrict LGBTQ+ content by falsely linking immorality to a variety of sexual orientations.

[47] According to an anonymous Jordanian researcher who reported to Al Jazeera, many of these protesters were detained "for a day or a weekend, but now some people have been detained for months for a tweet, a retweet, or even sharing a private story on Instagram to twist their arm and to say: ‘Quiet down and don't go down on the street.’”[46] Activists and protesters started reporting on people who were arbitrarily arrested for their exercising their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly or simply for their chants under the hashtags:[48][49][50] #الحرية_لمعتقلي_الرأي (Freedom for prisoners of opinion) #لا_لتكميم_الافواه (No to muzzling mouths) #الحرية_لمعتقلي_دعم_غزة (Freedom for the detainees supporting Gaza) Amnesty International documented the cases of five political activists who were dteianed and charged under the cybercrime law for “inciting sedition, strife, and hatred”, “sending, re-sending, or publishing libelous or slanderous information”, “defaming an official body” and “publishing pictures, information, or news of law enforcement officials”.

[47] On February 6, 2024, Human Rights watch (HRW) published a report interviewing people who have been artbitrarily detained, harassed and summoned by the General Intelligence Directorate under the new cybercrimes law.

A woman was also detained for publishing a video on X that shows police breaking up the pro-Palestine protests and reported being repeatedly asked by the governor “is Gaza worth all of this?”, “You sit in your home, you eat, drink, sleep, and go to the protest and go back home and we make this safe for you.”[5] Nevertheless, as Lama Fakih, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch noted, the current regional crisis is used by Jordan as a guise to restrict Jordanians' freedom to expression and "recent cases have proven that [the Jordanian] authorities have and will continue to abuse vague provisions of the cybercrimes law.”[5]