BEGINNING THE FIGHT OVER PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 AMMAN 008422

SIPDIS

STATE FOR NEA, NEA/PPD, PASS TO DOL-ILAB; LONDON FOR TSOU

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/26/2010
TAGS: ELAB KDEM KPAO PGOV JO
SUBJECT: BEGINNING THE FIGHT OVER PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS

REF: A. AMMAN 7979


B. AMMAN 2251

Classified By: DCM Daniel Rubinstein, Reasons 1.4 (B) & (D)


1. (C) Summary: Deputy PM Marwan Muasher, chairman of the
Royal Commission for the National Agenda (the centerpiece of
King Abdullah's reform efforts),recently announced that the
commission's report will include a recommendation that
membership in the Jordan Press Association (JPA) become
voluntary instead of mandatory. The current system of
mandatory membership strengthens the unrepresentative
leadership of the association and allows them to influence
Jordanian media. The JPA's reaction to this reform-oriented
proposal was predictably shrill; Jordan's other professional
associations, suspecting they may be next, joined in
denouncing the proposal. Ominously for reform advocates, the
leaders of both houses of parliament also denounced the
proposal. This conflict may be indicative of likely fights
over liberalization that will arise in the coming months, as
Jordanian decision-makers consider the draft National Agenda
reforms. END SUMMARY.


2. (C) NOTE: Jordan's professional associations currently
wield considerable influence in their fields, due largely to
laws that make dues-paying membership mandatory for
journalists, lawyers, doctors, engineers, and others. Anyone
wishing to officially practice one of these professions must
be officially recognized in his or her chosen field, and that
official recognition flows from membership in the relevant
association. Any editor-in-chief of a paper, for example,
must be an officially recognized journalist, and therefore a
member of the JPA. Through housing plans, scholarship funds,
and peer pressure, these associations also command the
loyalty of rank-and-file members, particularly junior
professionals. Senior journalists and editors complain that
the JPA's leaders are chosen through opaque processes
(including faxes to editors with recommended candidates for
JPA positions from Jordanian security services) and that they
do not pay enough attention to serious professional concerns.
Association leaders are also rumored to report on members to
the security services, and to benefit from the services,
support in return. END NOTE.


3. (C) These professional associations have long been
reliably anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-normalization, and
anti-reform (ref B). Internal regulations are biased against
those who have worked outside of Jordan, even those who have
worked for highly respected international news agencies. The
associations set limits to official interaction between
association members and international organizations; contacts
with foreign (non-Arab or non-UN) organizations are
discouraged. For example, the JPA, like other professional
associations, has boycotted meetings with official Americans
since its foundation in the 1950,s. After numerous heated
debates, the JPA's president and executive committee
convinced the membership to allow them to meet with the new
PAO soon after his arrival this July. Following this
courtesy call, other members of the board publicly and
angrily denounced the meeting as a step toward allowing
"foreign capitalist normalizers" to control Jordan's media.
This reflects what the JPA sees as its main role, as
described at the Global Forum for Media Development (October
1 ) 3, 2005),which is to protect Jordanian readers and
journalists from the excesses and irresponsibility of
nefarious capitalist-controlled foreign forces. An
influential journalist opposed to the JPA speaking at the
GFMD summed it up best by referring to "paranoid Soviet-style
control."


4. (C) The JPA is fighting hard to maintain obligatory
membership as a method of controlling journalism in Jordan,
and of maintaining its own influence. DPM Muasher's
statement that the National Agenda report will recommend
ending obligatory membership in the JPA triggered immediate
and shrill reactions. (Ref A provides a preview of other
expected National Agenda recommendations.) JPA organized a
peaceful demonstration in front of the Prime Ministry which
(not surprisingly) got significant media coverage. The JPA
has also engineered public statements of support by
sympathetic legislators, including the heads of both houses
of Parliament. At the same time, in a potentially (and
uncharacteristically) positive move, association leaders
publicly announced the formation of a committee to update and
reform internal regulations. This committee plans to allow
journalists who have worked overseas for major international
media to count that experience toward establishing
professional journalist status in Jordan ) a small step
toward openness to outside influences.


5. (C) Editorialists and senior journalists who oppose the
JPA and obligatory membership argue that such reforms should
have taken place years ago. They say they have little or
nothing to show from the JPA over the past fifty years.
These senior professionals - supported by reformers in the
government and by international advocates for a free and
independent press - argue that obligatory membership in
professional associations such as the JPA should be a thing
of the past, that it impinges on freedom of association, and
that it hinders the full development of the media in Jordan.
They decry the JPA's opaque and complicated membership rules,
which severely limit those who can be officially recognized
as journalists. Local International Labor Organization
Representative Rashid Khedim, told PolOff this is an issue of
freedom of association; membership in any trade or
professional union should be optional. ILO is hailing the
royal commission's stand against obligatory membership in the
JPA. International media rights groups present at the GFMD
also made impassioned pleas for the JPA not to oppose this
proposed reform, noting how unexpected and unwelcome it was
to hear journalists arguing against a government's efforts to
remove controls over journalists.


6. (C) Comment: However the JPA battle eventually ends, this
recommendation is considered a shot across the bow of all the
professional associations. Muasher denies that the National
Agenda commission or the government has any plan to repeal
laws requiring membership in the other professional
associations. However, it is no secret that the Palace views
the associations as an obstacle to reform; ending obligatory
membership would weaken these critics of GOJ reform efforts
(and foreign policy) considerably. As senior editorialist
Ibrahim Gharaybed wrote in the independent and influential
daily Al-Ghad, the end of obligatory membership in the JPA
"constitutes an opportunity for the government to stand up to
the other associations and cancel obligatory membership in
those as well. The Jordan Press Association was first in
line because it is the weakest." Leaders of other
professional associations and their anti-reform allies
understand this clearly, and are mobilizing to fight the
change. END COMMENT.



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