JORDAN'S SENATE APPROVES ASSOCIATIONS LAW

C O N F I D E N T I A L AMMAN 001620 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/19/2019 TAGS: PGOV KDEM JO SUBJECT: JORDAN'S SENATE APPROVES ASSOCIATIONS LAW AMENDMENTS REF: AMMAN 1576 Classified By: Ambassador R. Stephen Beecroft for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (U) Jordan's royally appointed Senate approved the amendments to the controversial Law on Associations on July ¶19. The amendments came from the lower house, which last week changed them in order to require cabinet approval of foreign funding for civil society organizations (reftel). Upon the recommendations of the Senate legal committee, most of the amendments were approved as forwarded from the lower house without changes. There were some minor corrections of language and meaning to some articles, but nothing that will substantively change the impact of the amendments as altered by the lower house. Since those small changes were made, however, the law will now be sent back to the lower house for what promises to be a pro forma re-approval before it is forwarded to the King for his signature. ¶2. (C) Following the session, Senator and former PM Taher Al-Masri told poloff that he and many of his colleagues in the upper house disagreed with the restrictive changes made by the lower house, especially those which will require approval of all foreign funding for civil society to pass through the council of ministers. Nevertheless, they felt little to no political pressure from the government to undo the changes made by the lower house and decided to send the law forward without substantive changes. Beecroft