Ammon News - AMMAN - Interior Minister Nayef Qadi and district governors on Saturday said that the practice of “administrative detention” is not a threat to human rights.

At an event launching an Interior Ministry programme of workshops for governors to discuss the best means to apply the Crime Prevention Law, the minister said Jordan has taken the measures necessary to protect its citizens' rights and freedoms.

However, "it is impossible to protect the peoples' rights and freedoms without security and stability", Qadi said.

"When talking about public freedoms, democracy and human rights, we must also take into consideration providing security and stability."

Zarqa Governor Saad Al Wadi Manaseer said, "applying administrative detention does not contradict with preservation of human rights and freedoms", calling Jordan a leading country in protecting rights.

The practice of administrative detention, as defined under the Crime Prevention Law of 1954, allows governors to detain without trial or indictment individuals who pose "a danger to the public", terminology that critics have said is too vague and subject to abuse.

In May, a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on the government to end the practice, saying it violates human rights and undermines the rule of law. The same week, Amnesty International also criticised the law in its 2009 global report.

"Governors and other high officials shouldn't be able to lock people up on vague suspicions of improper behaviour," Joe Stork, Middle East HRW deputy director, said at a press conference launching the report, whose findings were endorsed by the Amman-based National Centre for Human Rights (NCHR).

NCHR Commissioner General Muhyeddine Touq said at the time that the report by the international watchdog mentioned issues that the NCHR had raised in its own reports in 2006, 2007 and 2008, noting that around 12,000 Jordanians were detained on governors' orders last year.

Touq said the NCHR has repeatedly called on the government not to end, but to amend the 1954 legislation to ensure that administrative detention "is based on sound grounds and detention is only enforced upon a judicial order".

Saturday's workshop included several papers and presentations discussing the difference between administrative and judicial detention.

The programme, conducted by the Interior Ministry in coordination with the International Committee of the Red Cross in Jordan, will move to the north and the south in its next stages.

It will include several lectures and seminars to discuss human rights terminology, analytical approaches to the Crime Prevention Law, the vision of the NCHR regarding this law and principles of applying the law.

Khalid Neimat/ The Jordan Times - Picture from Petra