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