In its report about freedom and liberty, Freedom house organization issued that in the Middle East and North Africa:

“Repression in Iran led to score declines, and other countries in the region suffered a number of setbacks. Jordan, Bahrain, and Yemen were all downgraded from Partly Free to Not Free. Declines were also noted in Morocco and the Palestinian Territories. Lebanon and Iraq registered improvements.”

A logical thinking about the role of the state would inevitably that legislations made by any state should have always the aim to fulfill the needs of its citizens, protect their interests and target the development of their lives. Meanwhile, we don’t deny that numerous governments around the world have been addressing the problems of material on the Internet, that is illegal under their offline laws, and also those considered to be harmful. This what could render the censorship process positive, while any kind of oppression to the voice of people and majority cannot be but a negative one.

Is it possible today to restrict and control news broadcasting, blogs, social networks; facebook or twitter? Whoever thinks to be able to do that should declare the police state and start chasing all internet users from all around the world. Logical questions might be raised about internet communication systems, such as: what if the blog or the news agencies are broadcasting from out of the Jordanian borders, from a free country? Can censorship work? If it works once for sure it won’t work for the long term due to the easiness of this process. Moreover, this will uncover the real ineffectiveness that such decisions can have.

Therefore, Government policies should encourage the use of Internet industry as it’s the main protagonist of the coming future. Especially if we realize that the Jordanian official media- in its traditional system- was never a competitive one, and internet industry could be the only make up of this incompetence.

Such decisions will only have negative consequences of expanding the gap between the citizen and the state, increasing the feeling of being alienated, reinforcing a sense of the need to find various or even illegal ways to express their opinions, and of course abusing the privacy especially when dealing with personal stuff such as (blogs, facebook accounts, twitter and furthermore SMS). Thereby, the government contributes in the process of searching for an external reference to the Jordanian internal front, and the only loser in this process will not only be the State.

Trust is a sensitive issue that tends to be injured when censorship is applied. Citizens of a country where censorship is applied develop feelings that can be hard to change. They simply lose trust in the country, for they would never know when to believe and when not to believe that all what they are receiving is the complete version of the story.

Another quick glance at the press freedom index of (Reporters sans frontières ) will that Jordan in 2008 ranked the 128th, while in 2009 a leap of 16 points of progress took place, leaving Jordan in the 112th position. This progress, obviously, is due to the improvements in the freedom of press and undoubtedly a sizable share of this success lies behind the electronic news websites that achieved a kind of “freedom revolution".

Regrettably, this government initiative is aimed at depriving the populace from a strong independent press, as most of the critics claim.


At this point we wish to see new government resolutions that raise the slogan of: “Yes to freedom and No to silencing journalists”. We should always remember that such decisions affect also the Jordanian international image that we must extremely care about.


Organizing the work of Media is a highly needed process. And taking this process along should be linked to the concept that we should always bear on mind:

“ That the very duty of journalists is to reveal the truth, and that’s why we are against any restrictive kind of censorship of the media”. So how is fighting corruption supposed to take place without a free media? Or highlighting the hidden and untreated social problems?


The rapid pace of events and the dynamic progress taking place nowadays make of dealing with the current reality the most important dilemma that may encounter any government. Thus, the rational realization that life is moving forward and not backward should lead us to the fact that such laws and resolutions would only take us backwards.


Dr. Amer Al Sabaileh

http://amersabaileh.blogspot.com



*** Cartoon by Chapatte, International Herald Tribune