Jordan's King Speaks Out on Press Freedom

UNCLAS AMMAN 003105

SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED
SIPDIS

STATE FOR NEA/ELA, NEA/PPD, IIP/GNEA

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KMDR KPAO JO
SUBJECT: Jordan's King Speaks Out on Press Freedom

REF: 07 AMMAN 2605


1. (U) Summary: In an interview conducted November 9 with the
editors in chief of the four major Arabic dailies and the Jordan
Times, King Abdullah II expressed his "prohibition" of imprisonment
of journalists for publication crimes. The king's statements come
barely a week after the detention of a local journalist for alleged
publication crimes and more than a year after amendments that
partially eliminated detention as a punishment. End summary.


2. (U) King Abdullah II conducted a wide-ranging roundtable
interview on November 9 with the editors in chief of Al-Rai, Al-Arab
Al-Yawm, Al-Ghad, Ad-Dustour and the Jordan Times newspapers. In
reports published November 10, the king stressed "that he is fully
against the imprisonment of journalists." Calling such detention
"prohibited," the reports quoted the king as saying, "I do not see a
reason for detaining a journalist because he/she wrote something."
He averred, however, that "citizens... have the right to resort to
courts of law in case they feel their rights were violated by any
media organization."


3. (U) Reports of the interview were unusually terse, and restricted
to the government news agency's account of King Abdullah's remarks.
According to the reports, the only subjects discussed in detail by
the king were press freedoms, civil rights for women and children,
and the third anniversary of the Amman hotel bombings. Similarly,
op-ed commentary in Al-Ghad and Ad-Dustour were overly generalized
in their treatment of the monarch's statements on these subjects.


4. (U) King Abdullah's statements come on the heels of the
weekend-long detention of the editor of a local Arabic weekly. On
October 29, Fayez Ajrashi, editor of the minor weekly newspaper
Al-Ikhbaria, was arrested and charged under the penal code with
"sowing national discord" and "inflaming sectarian strife" in
allegedly criticizing the performance of Amman Governor Saad Wadi
Al-Manasir and hinting at corrupt practices. Ajrashi was arraigned
before the State Security Court and held over the weekend before
being released on bail November 2.


5. (U) Ajrashi's arrest was widely reported in the local and
regional press. Both the government-aligned Jordan Press
Association and the opposition Center for Defending Freedom of
Journalists called for his immediate release, and criticized the
authorities' reliance on the penal code rather than Jordan's press
and publications law which provides for monetary fines in cases of
publication crimes. Jordan liberalized the press law in 2007
(reftel),removing detention as a penalty, but other laws that
provide for detention were not addressed.


6. (SBU) Jordan Times chief editor Samir Barhoum told Emboffs that
most of the interview was conducted off-the-record, but that King
Abdullah was "sincere and direct" in his comments on press freedoms.
When asked about the timing of King Abdullah's comments and the
Ajrashi detention, Barhoum refused to answer, but didn't deny the
coincidence.


7. (SBU) Comment: Ajrashi's detention and its circumstances resemble
those under the pre-2007 practice of government censor and law
enforcement authorities in response to publication crimes. The
handling of Ajrashi's case appears to have angered King Abdullah,
who, while cautious in his approach to political reform, has offered
a future vision of an independent, professional media sector. The
king's statements in yesterday's interview draw a redline for
government officials and other powerful individuals tempted by
traditional punishments of expressions deemed to be defamatory. End
comment.

Beecroft