Ammon News - By Nermeen Murad

Google has announced that it will consider pulling its operation out of China because of the increasing demands by the government to place restrictions on content that is available to Chinese users.

Reports claim that Google stands to lose about $1 billion of its annual income if it closes its Chinese operation, but that wasn’t enough of an economic consideration to make it sacrifice its integrity any further.

The fact of the matter is that Google has bent over backwards to accommodate Chinese demands for censorship and has since the beginning of its operation there allowed the government to interfere with the news it carries, especially about insurgency or opposition groups within China or outside it, such as the followers of the Dalai Lama.

And just as the world was mulling this piece of news, the Jordanian Court of Cassation ruled that blogs and web-based news sites should operate under the legal interpretation of the Press and Publications Law.

My first impression - as I am sure is the impression of many who read the ruling - is that Jordan’s “censorship camp” has found a way to muzzle the news websites. However, upon quick investigation, it became apparent that the ruling covers a legal loophole whereby personal insult or defamation cases against writers on such websites are now legally possible under the relevant articles of the Press and Publications Law and with a monetary penalty rather than a prison sentence.

According to a lawyer close to the ruling, Jordan’s Penal Code deals with defamation cases and sets a prison sentence as penalty - as opposed to the Press and Publications Law, which was created to deal differently with cases in the media and for which convictions result in fines.

From a legal perspective, then, it is probably safe to say that the ruling is not to “organise the work of the news websites”, which still do not, according to this lawyer, have to register as a media publication or get licensing from the government to operate. Therefore, as long as news websites stick to the general guidelines that apply to all journalistic work, they are apparently safe from censorship or forceful muzzling of their opinion and news reporting.

Or are they? The answer remains in the hands of the implementers of the ruling and whether they will take this opportunity to hound news websites with restrictions and conditions or respect the intent of the legal interpretation.

This debate over whether the “implementers” will use the “lenient” Press and Publications Law or the “prison yielding” penal code to protect the personal reputation of individuals is not new. We all witnessed incidences where journalists were dragged to prison pending an investigation into a defamation case - until His Majesty King Abdullah publicly declared that he will not allow journalists to be taken to prison over their opinion.

As we in Jordan face the increasing challenge of standing up to the agents of extremism and terror targeting the stability of our country and others, we are faced with two options: we can tighten the authoritarian grip and ban all criticism of our actions, whether that criticism is constructive and valid or not, or we can continue to uphold the laws of the country and encourage our citizens to feel that they also have a stake in the stability of this country and are responsible for maintaining it.

I believe that the choice to allow all channels of expression to flourish - even when they include some negative or harmful voices - should always be our chosen path. This policy will, in my opinion, be the only way to sustain our stability and strengthen our credibility as we stand against the forces of terrorism, which in fact truly represent the ugly face of authoritarianism and intolerance of others.

(Jordan Times)