Jordan Uses Emergency Legislation to Tighten Restrictions on Political Dissent

Over the past four years, Jordanian authorities have tightened restrictions on citizens organizing peacefully and engaging in political dissent.

Our organisation has found that the authorities used vague and abusive laws that criminalize speech, association, and assembly.

The authorities detain, interrogate, and harass journalists, political activists, and members of political parties and independent trade unions, and their family members, and restrict their access to basic rights, such as work and travel, to quash political dissent.

Reuters has earlier reported that Jordanian authorities also used emergency legislation brought in at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 to quash dissent, including activating the Defense Law of 1992, which grants the Prime Minister expansive powers to curtail basic rights.

In this regard, we stress that maintaining stability can never justify the violation of human rights.