Main Syria-Jordan Crossing Under Insurgent Assault

By RANA F. SWEIS APRIL 3, 2015 AMMAN, Jordan — The main border crossing between Syria and Jordan remained closed and chaotic on Friday, with insurgents — including the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s branch in Syria, and Western-backed rebel factions — wrangling for control two days after they seized and looted the crucial gateway. The power struggle at the Nasib crossing, coupled with Syrian government airstrikes that hit nearby on Thursday, is the latest cross-border spillover from Syria’s four-year war, and it has led to new tensions between Jordan and Syria. Adding to the chaos, at least 10 Lebanese truck drivers were being held by Nusra, Lebanon’s minister for the economy, Alain Hakim, told Lebanon’s Daily Star newspaper, and witnesses said as many as 22 were being held either for ransom or as bargaining chips. Jordan’s interior minister, Hussein Majali, said the border would remain closed indefinitely until the authorities could guarantee security there. The chaos on the border was a blow to Syria’s government, which lost the last crossing it had still controlled along the 230-mile border. But it could also be embarrassing for Jordan, the United States and other allies involved in a covert program to train insurgents who, they insist, are relatively nationalist and moderate. Those fighters, calling themselves the Free Syrian Army, work out of an operations room in Jordan and receive some assistance from the United States, which lists Nusra as a terrorist organization. But in practice, they often cooperate on the battlefield. Asaad al-Zoubi, a former Syrian Army officer and the Free Syrian Army’s coordinator for the southern front, admitted in an interview that some members of army-affiliated battalions had taken part in the looting, but he insisted that they had not coordinated with Nusra. “I admit there was chaos and looting even by members of the Free Syrian Army, but we are working on returning some of the stolen goods and equipment,” Mr. Zoubi said Friday. He said that factions linked to the Free Syrian Army had seized the border crossing without Nusra fighters, who rushed in later to take credit. Antigovernment activists in the area have said that a deal was made with Nusra to remain in the background. Videos on social media sites showed various groups celebrating the crossing’s seizure, including Nusra as well as groups linked to the Free Syrian Army. Other videos showed men unloading trucks and cars and speeding away with goods. “I was shocked — the building is completely empty,” said Ammar, an antigovernment activist, after visiting the area. “There are no more tables, computers, cables. They even looted the tiles and the plugs. This is the people’s property.” He added: “After the liberation I was so happy, but after I saw this I wish the place were still with the regime. The building was like a pretty woman who suddenly aged.” After a second visit on Friday, he said Nusra and Free Syrian Army groups were controlling different parts of the complex, with a Free Syrian Army group called the Southern Falcons objecting to Nusra’s efforts to seize control of the crossing and its spoils. He said a Nusra fighter told him they were holding 22 drivers, not for ransom, but as a way to put pressure on the Free Syrian Army “to let Nusra run the whole place.” Hwaida Saad, Maher Samaan and Anne Barnard contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon. Read in the NYTIMES...

In Jordan, Keen Interest in Outcome of Israeli Elections

By Rana F. Sweis Mar 17, 2015 AMMAN, Jordan — Roya news channel, an independent Jordanian television broadcaster, was live-tweeting the Israeli elections on Tuesday. The editors at Roya provided a brief take on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhu’s efforts to garner support and quoted him as saying, “What is important is to go out and vote for the Zionist parties because it’s important for the preservation of Jewish and Zionist identity of the state of Israel.” The station promoted its political panel discussing the vote in neighboring Israel. The television station’s morning show mocked the advice with this cartoon equating the “Zionist left” with what it sees as the equally distasteful “Zionist right.” The Al Rai newspaper, a government-owned paper, noted that “Arab Israelis are coming out to vote in high numbers to end Netanyahu’s rule.” Al Ghad, an independent daily newspaper, featured a photograph this morning from the elections campaign and the headline, “Israel on the verge of a more fragmented Parliament.” Read in the NYTIMES...

Vacancies in Refugee Camp in Jordan for Syrians

By RANA F. SWEIS MARCH 15, 2015 AL AZRAQ REFUGEE CAMP, Jordan — Here in Jordan’s vast northeastern desert, row after row of white steel shelters built specially for Syrian refugees sit empty. Storefronts lining a street designed to mimic an urban souk are shuttered, the silence broken only by the punishing wind that is infamous here. Layers of sand coat the windows and floors. Syrian families live in other parts of the camp, one of the only places left in Jordan where most new refugees are allowed to settle. But nearly 11 months after the camp opened, there are many areas that are deserted. It was not supposed to be this way. Built with tens of millions of dollars of international donor money, Azraq was meant to solve myriad problems for both Jordan and the Syrians who have flooded over the border since civil war began to tear apart their country in 2011. For Jordan, the camp was expected to relieve the burden that hundreds of thousands of displaced Syrians are placing on the country’s fragile economy and crowded cities. For the refugees, Azraq was expected to be something of a step up despite its remoteness, a better-planned camp designed around “villages” where people from the same Syrian towns and cities could cluster near shared schools and playgrounds. More troubling for Jordan, aid agencies say the vast majority of those who left the camp settled illegally in the very cities and towns the camp was built to relieve. (At least 625,000 Syrians have settled in Jordan since the war started, and only about 100,000 are in camps, according to the United Nations refugee agency.) At least in public, donors who poured money into the camp are not pushing Jordan — an active ally in the military fight against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL — to change its policies. Money spent on Azraq, they say, is part of a broader policy of supporting Jordan as it struggles to maintain its security in a turbulent region. “There are hard choices to be made by the Jordanian government, and we understand,” Mr. Terzi said in an interview. “National security is paramount.” When Azraq opened, it was one of four camps housing displaced Syrians. The largest camp, Zaatari, opened in 2012 and was initially known for its crime and chaos. Azraq was, in some ways, envisioned as the anti-Zaatari, a better-designed camp meant to build a cohesive community. To avoid Zaatari’s cramped quarters, Azraq is four times the size and was designed with precision, rather than piecemeal as Zaatari was at a time when Jordan was scrambling to house the early flood of refugees. Azraq’s designers have succeeded in some ways. Security has never been a big issue here, as it was at Zaatari, in part because of more policing. Azraq also has a well-equipped hospital and a well-stocked supermarket, where refugees can spend food coupons provided by the World Food Program to buy hunks of cheese, olive oil, rice and nuts, reminders of home. And rather than the tents used at Zaatari, small shelters designed to better withstand heat and wind house Azraq’s residents. Still, life in the camp is routinely harsh. There is electricity provided by generators only in very limited areas. Refugees, many of them former city dwellers, worry about the scorpions, and about snakes they fear will be attracted by the mice that have already overrun the camp. But perhaps the biggest complaint is the lack of bustle that would naturally accompany a larger population. “Azraq still needs to get that sense of community,” said Andrew Harper, the top official with the United Nations refugee agency in Jordan. In addition to the more than 80,000 Syrians at Zaatari, a bustling street market created and run by the refugees has contributed to what aid officials and refugees call a sense of “dignity.” “The market is where people meet and drink tea,” said Jina Krause-Vilmar, director at the Near East Foundation, a nonprofit organization helping vulnerable communities. “It’s where a sense of community is established.” The street market at Azraq would go a long way toward relieving the bleakness, but it remains unopened, according to the United Nations and the spokesman for the Jordanian government, Mohammad Momani, because the government wants to impose taxes and possibly other fees on those who set up businesses. (Mr. Momani said he expected the market to open soon.) A man who would identify himself only as Abu Eiad, 51, is one of those who left the camp, in his case for a northern Jordanian town. He arrived last June from Damascus after a grueling journey with two of his remaining three children. A son who joined the Free Syrian Army, an armed group fighting the Syrian government, had already been killed, and his wife died during fierce clashes on a visit to her family’s hometown, Dara’a. But after living in the camp for one month, he could not take the rough conditions. He said he left legally through a temporary travel permit, but never returned. “My health was deteriorating,” he said. “I couldn’t take my kids out of the shelter at night because I was afraid they would be bitten by hyenas or vicious animals in the desert.” Aid workers said the tide might be turning somewhat at Azraq, with a small number of refugees recently leaving cities and towns for the camp, but only because they are desperate. Living outside the camp, they receive considerably less international help than they do inside, where they are entitled to free health care and larger food rations. Abu Eiad said he would not be moving to the camp. “It’s true that I am living in poverty here and my son is not attending school,” he said, referring to the town where he has been living, “but if I was forced to leave this place, I would return to Syria, not to the camp.” Correction: March 18, 2015 An article on Monday about the Azraq refugee camp in Jordan, which currently houses only 14,500 of the 60,000 Syrian refugees expected by the end of last year, misidentified the United Nations agency that warned in December, after a drop in donor funding, that it would have to cut off food aid for Syrian refugees living outside refugee camps. It is the World Food Program, not the World Health Organization. Read in the NYTIMES...

Jordanian City Votes to Avoid ISIS Aesthetic

By RANA F. SWEIS MARCH 10, 2015 AMMAN, Jordan — Push brooms in hand, the sanitation workers who clean the streets of this capital could be easily recognized by their bright orange work suits. The city’s mayor, Aqel Biltaji, even donned the municipal uniform in 2013 to help show Jordanians that there was no shame in a job that requires “dedication and loyalty.” But that uniform has become more closely associated with Islamic State militants who force their captives to wear orange jumpsuits in videos that show grisly deaths, including beheadings and the recent immolation of a Jordanian fighter pilot. A video released on Tuesday purportedly shows the killing of a Palestinian man by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, wearing the orange outfit. In an effort to erase what has become a daily reminder of the militants’ violent crusade, the brother of First Lt. Moaz al-Kasasbeh, the fighter pilot burned alive inside a cage by ISIS militants, has led a campaign to change the color of the uniform worn by nearly 4,600 sanitation workers here. “It’s the right of our children not to see this color in the streets,” said the pilot’s brother, Jawad al-Kasasbeh. “Our workers and our people deserve not to have to see this color, which reminds them of the evil actions of Islamic State.” Mr. Kasasbeh’s initiative gained momentum online, and the city responded by forming a committee to consider changing the uniform and conducting a public poll to choose a new color. “My message spread, and citizens responded positively, and the municipality took action quickly,” Mr. Kasasbeh said. Visitors to the city’s website were asked whether they favored changing the color and, if so, their preference among eight options, including bright green, fuchsia and turquoise. Mr. Kasasbeh said in a telephone interview that he did not want Jordanian citizens to think about “revenge” when they see sanitation workers. City workers have the right to do their jobs without wearing “this ugly color” that ISIS hostages are forced to wear, he added. Instead, sanitation workers will wear turquoise uniforms printed with the city’s emblem starting on March 21, Mother’s Day here in Jordan. The new color, Mr. Kasasbeh said, is “beautiful and signifies life and energy, everything that is the opposite of Daesh,” another name for ISIS. Since the immolation of Lieutenant Kasasbeh, Jordan has increased its participation in the American-led assault against the Islamic State. Read in the NYTIMES...

Jordan Gives Prison Term for Criticism on Facebook

By RANA F. SWEIS FEB. 15, 2015 AMMAN, Jordan — The deputy head of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan was sentenced on Sunday to 18 months in prison for criticizing the United Arab Emirates in a Facebook post. The state security court, a special body that has jurisdiction over Jordan’s internal and external threats, found the Brotherhood leader, Zaki Bani Rushaid, guilty of “acts harmful to the country’s relations with a friendly nation.” On his personal Facebook page, Mr. Bani Rushaid wrote on Nov. 17 that the Emirates, an important ally of Jordan and one of several countries in the region, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, that have engaged in a campaign to wipe out the Brotherhood, plays the role of the “American cop in the region, supports coups and is a cancer in the body of the Arab world.” The Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan condemned the verdict in a statement released on Sunday. The arrest of Mr. Bani Rushaid, under a recently strengthened antiterrorism law, was “politically motivated and demonstrates a deliberate escalation by the state against the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan,” the statement said. “It is a blow to freedom of speech and the rights of citizens.” Standing inside a black cage in the courtroom, Mr. Bani Rushaid reacted stoically to the verdict. His lawyer, Saleh Armouti, looked at his client and said, “May God bring you no harm.” Mr. Armouti added that he planned to appeal. Mr. Bani Rushaid has been detained since November, and the time he has served will be deducted from his sentence. “This is a shame, a shame,” shouted a small crowd outside the court after hearing the verdict. Some held posters of Mr. Bani Rushaid. Mr. Armouti angrily pointed his finger in the air and, referring to King Abdullah II of Jordan, said: “Where is justice, your majesty? This is death for freedom of expression. The government is to blame. Where is the government?” Ali Abul Sukkar, a Brotherhood member who was among the protesters, said, “This court is a military court for the most heinous crimes against the country, not for a well-known figure who expresses an opinion on Facebook.” “There is no logical and just decision to this,” he added. “It is purely political.” It was the first arrest and conviction of an opposition leader in recent years, although a Brotherhood member, Mohammad Said Bakr, was taken into custody in September and given a six-month sentence after he harshly criticized the Jordanian authorities for what he suggested was a tepid response to the Israeli military campaign in the Gaza Strip last summer. The Muslim Brotherhood is Jordan’s main opposition party, but unlike Egypt, Jordan has long tolerated the organization’s presence. In recent months, the Brotherhood movement here has had its own internal disputes, chiefly between the moderate and conservative factions. The movement’s more liberal wing has called for internal reform and changes in policies. The movement is known for its passionate advocacy of diminishing the relatively unchecked power of the king. Yet it has never called for the overthrow of the monarchy, even during the headiest days of the Arab Spring. After Mr. Bani Rushaid’s arrest, the government noted the importance of the country’s relations with the United Arab Emirates, where about 250,000 Jordanians work and which have provided considerable financial aid to Jordan. The Emirates have also used Jordan as a base to conduct airstrikes against the Islamic State. Read in the NYTIMES...

Reporting Bias in Coverage of Student Killings

By RANA F. SWEIS FEB. 13, 2015 AMMAN, Jordan — Whether three young students were shot and killed in North Carolina this week in a parking dispute or, as their families believe, because they were Muslims, online commentators here and outside the Middle East say the victims’ religion makes it a hate crime. Failing to treat it as such, the commentators say on social media, indicates that Americans and the Western news media just do not understand the region. Even before learning that two of the three victims — Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21, and her sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19 — were Jordanian citizens, their compatriots on social media called for wider coverage of the killings. The shooting occurred Tuesday afternoon in Chapel Hill, N.C., but most news media outlets in the United States and abroad did not report on it until later the next day. This led some on social networks to suggest that the news media was slow to cover the story because the victims were Muslims. Jordanians on social media added that the reluctance to report the story as a hate crime was evidence of Western bias. The front page Friday of Al Ghad, an independent daily newspaper, read: “Two Jordanians victims of hate crime in the U.S.” The police initially described the shooting as stemming from a parking dispute with a white middle-aged neighbor, Craig Stephen Hicks, who later turned himself in and was charged in the killings. Late on Thursday, the F.B.I. said it would look into whether the shooting was a hate crime. Still, Mahmoud Shabeeb expressed his outrage on Twitter at what he perceived to be inconsistent standards when either the suspects or the victims of a crime were Muslim. The satirical Jordanian website Kharabeesh posted angry expressions from across the Arab world, and included a translation of a Twitter message by the CNN political commentator Sally Kohn with a hashtag, in Arabic, “#Western_Media_Standards.” A comment to the post by Kharabeesh alleged “hypocrisy, media that sees with one eye only.” A cartoonist for Al Ghad, Naser Al-Jafari, posted on Facebook a cartoon of Mr. Hicks, the suspect, standing beside a militant of the Islamic State who is dressed in black with his face covered. It is titled, in English, “The Visible & Invisible Face of Terror.” Another popular Jordanian cartoonist, Osama Hajjaj, posted on Twitter a menacing depiction of Mr. Hicks in the colors of the American flag — red hair and ears, white eyes and a blue nose. His black beard and mouth resemble an Islamic State militant dressed in black. Many social media posts attempted to liken Mr. Hicks, 46, a former auto parts dealer who had been studying to become a paralegal, with Islamic extremists accused of killing Americans. Dr. Mohammad Yousif Abu-Salha, the father of the two slain women, also questioned the attention his daughter's killing had received in comparison with crimes committed by Muslims. “If a Muslim commits a crime, it’s on the news 24/7 for two months,” Dr. Abu-Salha, a psychiatrist in Clayton, N.C., told The Associated Press. “When we are executed in numbers, it’s on the news for seconds.” On Friday, Jordan’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement calling on all Jordanians in the United States to be cautious and on alert after the shooting. Queen Rania of Jordan, using the popular hashtag #muslimlivesmatter, sent her condolences to the victims’ families to her 3.6 million followers on Twitter. And Natasha Tynes, a Jordanian-American media consultant, wrote on Facebook, “I guess there is no ‘Je Suis’ hashtag for the three Muslims gunned down in Chapel Hill,” and wondered if world leaders would march in the streets to condemn the killings as they did after the attacks in Paris on the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher grocery store last month. Some Jordanian social media activists have called for a rally in Amman on Saturday, declaring: “Charlie is not more valuable than them.” Read in the NYTIMES...

Jordan: Jihadist Cleric Freed From Jail

By RANA F. SWEIS FEB. 5, 2015 Jordan released Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, a leading jihadist cleric, from prison on Thursday, according to the official Petra news agency. Mr. Maqdisi, who was arrested in October, was accused of “using the Internet to promote and incite views of jihadist terrorist organizations.” It is unclear why he was released. Considered a spiritual mentor to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq until his death in 2006, Mr. Maqdisi later renounced the killing of civilians and has spoken out against the Islamic State group, calling it “deviant.” Read in the NYTIMES...

Jordan Warns Militants Against Harming Pilot

By BEN HUBBARD and RANA F. SWEIS DEC. 25, 2014

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Jordan threatened the militants of the Islamic State on Thursday with “grave consequences” if they harmed a Jordanian pilot captured after his F-16 crashed in northern Syria.

The warning, issued by Jordan’s Parliament, came as members of the pilot’s family appealed to his captors to welcome him as a “guest” and to show him mercy as a fellow Muslim.

But no new information on the fate of the pilot, First Lt. Moaz al-Kasasbeh, has emerged since his jet went down on Wednesday and supporters of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, distributed photos online that showed him in his underwear and with a bloody mouth as bearded gunmen led him away.

His plane was the first to crash since an American-led coalition of countries, including the Arab nations of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, began bombing Islamic State targets this year in an attempt to weaken the group’s hold of territory in Syria and Iraq.

Lieutenant Kasasbeh is also the first military member of the coalition to be captured by the militants, raising the prospect that the group could use him for propaganda purposes or kill him for revenge.

The Islamic State often distributes videos of its fighters executing captured Syrian and Iraqi soldiers and has beheaded two American and two British civilians in what it called revenge for their countries’ war against it.

The pilot’s capture has shocked Jordan, one of the United States’ closest Arab allies. Like all of the coalition’s member nations, Jordan has spoken generally about its participation in the campaign but has not elaborated on its role for fear of retribution by the Islamic State and to avoid provoking the jihadists’ domestic sympathizers.

It remains unclear whether the pilot’s aircraft had a mechanical failure or, as the Islamic State militants have claimed, was shot down with an antiaircraft missile. American military officials said Wednesday there was no indication a missile had felled the plane.

The Jordanian warning was issued by the lower house of Parliament, which said in a statement carried by the state-run Petra news agency that the Islamic State and its supporters would face “grave consequences if pilot First Lt. Moaz al-Kasasbeh is harmed.”

The statement voiced continued support for Jordan’s role in the coalition and urged the government of King Abdullah II to “do its utmost to ensure a safe return of the pilot.”

The king met with the pilot’s family on Wednesday, and his wife, Queen Rania, posted on Instagram an image of a Jordanian flag in the shape of a fighter jet with the hashtag “We are all Moaz.”

Images of the captive posted on the Internet by the group showed him appearing traumatized and disoriented as he was surrounded by triumphal militants. Some wore their customary face hoods, but others were clearly recognizable.

Lieutenant Kasasbeh’s father, Safi, said in an interview with Reuters Television on Thursday that he did not consider his son to be a hostage of the militants.

“I don’t call him a prisoner,” he said, asking the militants to treat his son well. “I call him a guest of our brothers in Syria, of the Islamic State group.”

The pilot’s uncle, Fahed al-Kasasbeh, a retired major general from Jordan’s armed forces, said by phone Thursday that the family had received no new information on Lieutenant Kasasbeh’s fate and appealed to the jihadists to welcome him as a fellow Muslim.

“We expect him to be treated the way the Prophet Muhammad treated his captives, with mercy and generosity,” he said.

That prospect was unclear at best. Supporters of the Islamic State have been taking to social media to suggest ways to kill Lieutenant Kasasbeh. The Raqqa Media Center, a pro-Islamic State group that distributed early photos of the captured pilot, posted a poll on its Facebook page asking what the militants should do with him. The options: negotiate for him, slaughter him with a knife, shoot him.

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Jordan Executes 11 After 8-Year Moratorium

By RANA F. SWEIS DEC. 21, 2014

AMMAN, Jordan — Jordan ended an eight-year moratorium on executions on Sunday when 11 men were hanged at dawn.

The men had been convicted of murder charges from 2002 to 2004, according to a statement released by the Interior Ministry.

The government carried out the executions at the Swaqa corrections and rehabilitation center, 60 miles south of Amman, the capital, “after taking all required legal measures,” according to the ministry’s spokesman, Ziad Zubi.

Jordan’s last previous execution, in March 2006, was carried out for a man convicted of killing his wife and baby.

Last month, the interior minister, Hussein Majali, announced that a committee had been formed to examine whether to reinstate the death penalty. Mr. Majali said members of the public believed that a rise in crime was related to the absence of executions.

The number of felonies and other crimes in the country increased to 33,800 last year from 24,700 in 2009, according to Jordan’s Department of Statistics, but the kingdom is generally seen as one of the safest in the region.

Since 2006, more than 100 people have been sentenced to death for crimes like murder, rape and treason, but until Sunday, none of the sentences had been carried out.

Jordanian and international human rights organizations heavily criticized the government on Sunday.

“Reinstatement of the death penalty is a major blow to Jordan’s official rhetoric in support of human rights,” said Adam Coogle, a Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The government should immediately reverse course and instead take prompt and decisive action toward a total abolition of this inherently cruel punishment.”

In a statement released on Sunday by Human Rights Watch, Sarah Leah Whitson, the director of the Middle East program, said, “Reviving this inherently cruel form of punishment is another way Jordan is backsliding on human rights.”

The European Union has been pushing Jordan to make the moratorium permanent. The Swedish ambassador to Jordan, Helena Rietz, expressed her concern over the executions on Twitter, saying that the European Union and Sweden urged Jordan to abolish the death penalty.

In a news release on Sunday, the British ambassador to Jordan, Peter Millett, also expressed his regret over the executions. “We urge Jordan to put in place a moratorium on any further use of the death penalty,” Mr. Millett said. “We consider that its use undermines human dignity, that there is no conclusive evidence that it has any value as a deterrent.”

In Jordan, no death sentence may be carried out unless the king approves it.

“I met with the family of a son who was murdered in cold blood more than a year ago,” said Adeeb Akroosh, 67, a Jordanian activist. “There were many Jordanians there who wrote a letter to His Majesty asking him to reinstate the death penalty.”

By Sunday afternoon, the names of the 11 men were published in the Jordanian news media.

On Thursday, a record number of countries threw their weight behind a United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for a moratorium on executions: 117 of the 193 member states voted in favor of the resolution, 38 voted against it, and 34 abstained.

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Syrian Refugees, Once Stuck, Enter Jordan

By RANA F. SWEIS Dec 12, 2014 AMMAN, Jordan — Hundreds of Syrian refugees, including women and children, who had been stranded for months in a buffer zone along the Jordanian border were allowed to enter Jordan on Thursday, according to the United Nations refugee agency and Syrians who were reunited with family members.

“The refugees stranded in no man’s land have crossed into Jordan and are being assessed by security authorities,” said Andrew Harper, the top official with the United Nations refugee agency in Jordan. He referred to a stretch of land between the border posts of Jordan and Syria.

The number of Syrians entering Jordan has risen sharply in the last few days, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration, the agency responsible for the transfer of refugees from the border area to refugee camps. Before that, the flow had slowed markedly in recent months.

It was not clear how many of the newly admitted refugees will be allowed to remain in Jordan. The United Nations refugee agency and Human Rights Watch have indicated that the number of refugees sent back to Syria by Jordan had been rising in recent months.

More than 600,000 Syrians have fled to Jordan over the four years of the Syrian civil war so far, straining the ability of Jordan, which has a population of 7.5 million, according to the World Population Review, to deal with them.

The Jordanian government spokesman, Mohammad Momani, said on Friday that Jordan has not been excluding women, elderly men or disabled men from entering. He said that all arriving refugees were “medically checked, given food, and their papers are examined to register them and make sure that none of them is affiliated with terrorist groups.”

Farouk Shahdat, a Syrian refugee living in the Azraq camp in a remote, dusty expanse of Jordan 60 miles east of Amman, said that 10 members of his family, most of them women and children, were stranded on the border for two and a half months. They finally got across the border and joined him at the camp on Thursday.

“We were desperately waiting and waiting for my family, and my elderly mother, too, not knowing what will happen to them,” he said. “But today they are here.”

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Brotherhood Arrest Seen as Warning

Syrians Stranded

By RANA F. SWEIS NOV. 19, 2014 AMMAN, Jordan — Thousands of Syrians, mostly women and children, have been stranded for weeks on Jordan’s border, according to international aid agencies who say Jordan appears to be increasingly turning away Syrians fleeing war at home. “We’ve received reports there’s a large group of Syrians near the Jordanian border,” said Andrew Harper, the top official with the United Nations refugee agency in Jordan, which has been one of the countries most open to Syrians in the past. “What we’re calling for is that all vulnerable persons are provided access to asylum.” Mr. Harper and other aid officials say that the flow of Syrians into Jordan has slowed substantially in recent weeks as domestic tension has risen over the growing refugee population from Syria and Iraq. Fears about terrorist infiltrators have also increased. The Syrians stuck at the border have presumably been turned away by border guards, the aid workers say, and have built makeshift shelters in a desolate stretch of desert north of Mafraq, Jordan, in an apparent hope that the country will eventually allow them in. A satellite image published this month by the United Nations showed around 155 shelters. The International Organization for Migration has estimated that about 2,700 people were waiting there, but a document circulated among countries contributing money for the refugees and obtained by The New York Times put the number at up to 4,000. The situation has contributed to a growing alarm among aid agencies over what they see as the decreasing options for Syrians seeking refuge from the war tearing their country apart. A recent report by two aid groups showed the number of Syrians accepted as refugees in the region declined by 88 percent last month as nations like Jordan that already host many refugees are becoming overwhelmed. The Jordanian government, which limits access by journalists to the border, would not discuss the aid agencies’ claims about the people waiting just over the border. “We cannot attest to something outside our border,” said Mohammad Momani, a government spokesman, adding that all those arriving at border crossings were being screened according to the procedures agreed on with the United Nations. In an interview, Mr. Harper of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (U.N.H.C.R.) said that the numbers of refugees crossing into Jordan had decreased sharply since September. “In September, we’ve had around 6,000 people cross into Jordan; in October, we’ve had around 500 people; and in November, we’ve had very very few people cross the border,” Mr. Harper said. The International Organization for Migration figures also attest to the drop in numbers. The Syrian civil war, now in its fourth year, has caused an influx of more than 600,000 refugees to Jordan, which has a population of 6.5 million. Lebanon, Egypt and Turkey have been among other countries taking in some of the more than three million Syrians who have fled the fighting. But the joint report by the Norwegian Refugee Council and the International Rescue Committee released last week suggested that many civilians who were fleeing were finding it more difficult to find refuge, leading to “a new level of hopelessness.” On average, more than 150,000 Syrians were able to cross into neighboring countries each month in 2013, the report said. Last month, the number of new refugees declined to 18,453. Lebanon last month announced it was denying entry to all but “exceptional” refugee cases. In Jordan, analysts and aid workers say the refugees appear, in part, to be caught in a struggle over who will take care of them in the long term. “Jordan is saying we cannot bear this responsibility alone anymore,” said Oraib al-Rantawi, director of Al Quds Center for Political Studies, a Jordanian research institute. “The international community and the Arab countries need to contribute and find a solution to the refugee crisis whether it’s through direct aid and support to Jordan or through safe areas or havens inside Syria.” Petra, the official Jordanian news agency, on Wednesday picked up a news report from Japan in which the king, who is visiting, thanked the country for its aid but also spoke of the continuing challenges for his country. “Foreign aid to Jordan and to the U.N. refugee agency reached only 29 percent of what is needed this year, and the rest of burden will fall onto our shoulders,” King Abdullah II is quoted saying. In addition, fears of infiltration rose after Jordan in September joined the United States-led military campaign against the Islamic State terrorist group operating in Syria and Iraq. As winter approaches, aid agencies worry conditions will further deteriorate for the refugees stranded on Jordan’s border. The aid agencies say they have been allowed to provide basic aid such as food and blankets through the Jordanian military and border guards. But they have not been allowed to visit the refugees. “We’re calling on all the countries in the region to allow those refugees who are fleeing the conflict to enter and calling on the international community to do more,” Mr. Harper said. Read in the NYTIMES...

Kerry Is Optimistic After Meeting Over Holy Site in Jerusalem

By RANA F. SWEIS and ISABEL KERSHNER NOV. 13, 2014

AMMAN, Jordan — Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday that Jordan, Israel and the Palestinians were committed to taking “concrete steps” to ease strife over a volatile holy site in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Speaking at a news conference after a summit meeting here with King Abdullah II of Jordan and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, and after a separate meeting in Amman with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, Mr. Kerry refused to elaborate on the nature of the steps. But he said that Mr. Netanyahu had shown his concern by coming to Jordan and that Mr. Abbas had pledged to prevent incitement to violence and to try to change the climate.

“The proof will not be in the words but in the actions,” Mr. Kerry added.

Mr. Abbas and Mr. Netanyahu, who have not met in years, did not meet in Amman or attend the news conference, which was held at the Foreign Ministry. The meeting of Mr. Kerry, King Abdullah and Mr. Netanyahu took place at the royal palace.

Nasser Judeh, Jordan’s foreign minister, who joined Mr. Kerry at the news conference, said King Abdullah had impressed upon Mr. Kerry how important the issue was for Jordan, the official custodian of the holy site revered by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, the location of Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, and by Jews as Temple Mount, where their ancient temples once stood.

The recent tensions have strained Israel’s alliance with neighboring Jordan and have fueled clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli security forces inside the compound and around East Jerusalem. They also helped spur a series of deadly Palestinian knife and vehicular attacks against Israelis.

The friction has been brewing for months, with Israeli nationalist activists and some right-wing politicians pushing for increased Jewish access and prayer rights at the site and Palestinian activists responding with increasingly noisy and violent protests.

The attempted assassination, by a Palestinian man, of a prominent Jewish activist who had pressed for Jewish prayer rights in the compound led to a rare closing of the site for one day in late October. Last week, Jordan withdrew its ambassador from Israel, citing Israeli violations.

Regarding any possible return of the ambassador, Mr. Judeh said Jordan would wait to see if Israel made good on its commitment to ease the tensions.

Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly pledged that he will maintain the status quo at the site, which allows Jews to visit but bars non-Muslim prayer there. He has also emphasized respect for Jordan’s special role, enshrined in the peace treaty that Israel and Jordan signed two decades ago.

But the Palestinians and Israelis have accused each other of provocations.

Read in the NYTIMES

Christians of Mosul Find Haven in Jordan

By RANA F. SWEIS OCT. 26, 2014 AMMAN, Jordan — They were among the final holdouts. Even as many of their neighbors fled the violence that engulfed Iraq after the American invasion, the three men stayed put, refusing to give up on their country or their centuries-old Christian community. Maythim Najib, 37, stayed despite being kidnapped and stabbed 12 times in what he believed was a random attack. Radwan Shamra, 35, continued to hope he could survive the sectarian war between his Sunni and Shiite countrymen even after losing two friends shot by an unknown gunman who left their bodies sprawled in a Mosul street. And a 74-year-old too frightened to give his name said he remained despite the trauma of spending three anguished days in 2007 waiting to learn if his kidnapped 17-year-old son was dead or alive. Iraqis attending Mass in June at a church in Al Qosh, where many Christians have fled after being intimidated into leaving their homes in Mosul. Now all three men from Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, and its environs have fled with their families to Jordan, forced out by Islamic State fighters who left them little choice. After capturing the city in June, the Sunni militant group gave Christians a day to make up their minds: convert, pay a tax, or be killed. It was “the last breath,” said Mr. Shamra, one of 4,000 Iraqi Christians from Mosul who have come to Jordan in the past three months and one of more than 50 people sheltering in St. Ephraim Syrian Orthodox Church in Amman. “We waited as long as possible until we knew we would die if we remained.” Their flight is part of a larger exodus of Christians leaving those Arab lands where religious intolerance is on the rise, a trend that has caused concern among Christians outside the region — including the pope. It has also captured the attention of King Abdullah II of Jordan, a close American ally who has made the need for the continued presence of multiple religions in the Middle East a major talking point in recent years. So when fighters from the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, stormed into Mosul, the Jordanian government threw open the country to Iraq’s Christians despite rising tensions in Jordan over waves of Syrian refugees whose presence has increasingly burdened ill-prepared communities. Hasan Abu Hanieh, a Jordanian political analyst, said the government’s decision was both humanitarian and strategic, at a time when Jordan is edgy over Islamist militants on its borders and anxious to keep its bonds with the West strong. “The government can show the world that Jordan has a policy that seeks to protect minorities, unlike its neighbors,” he said. The Iraqi Christians also benefited from the fact that Jordan’s small Christian community maintains good relations with its majority Sunni neighbors and mobilized quickly to help the refugees, many of whom were crammed into camps in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Also crucial was the intervention of Caritas, an international Christian charity that has spent years in Jordan serving displaced Palestinians, poor Jordanians and others. The group worked to let Iraq’s Christians know that Jordan was opening up to them. Payment for visas was waived, and Caritas and Jordan’s churches said they would provide for refugees’ basic needs. Refugees did, however, have to pay for their own flights on Royal Jordanian Airlines from Erbil, in Iraq, to Amman. About 500 of the new and often traumatized Christian refugees now live in community halls in seven churches in Amman and nearby Zarqa, trying hard to make do in places with little privacy or even enough basic necessities like toilets. Many of the other refugees are living several families to an apartment or house, paying the rent with their own money or with aid from Caritas. Still, they are relatively lucky, aid workers say. One of the lures to come here was the promise of being able to more quickly obtain refugee status that might allow them to leave the region. At the Mary, Mother of the Church in Amman, where dozens of the Christian refugees reside, suitcases lay on top of each other to save space. Thin mattresses with floral designs are spread across the floor and wet garments hang from windows to dry. The children, still afraid of their new surroundings, rarely wander off without their parents, even to play. “I ask them to tell me what they saw, how they feel now,” said Khalil Jaar, a priest in the parish. “I try to give them hope by telling them about the resilience of refugees in the past.” Besides providing shelter, the church feeds the refugees, doling out hearty portions of rice and vegetables paid for by charities or from donations from Jordanians. Like the approximately 620,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan and more than 30,000 other Iraqi refugees, the latest arrivals are not allowed to work — an attempt to ensure they do not stay forever in a country that previously granted citizenship to a large population of displaced Palestinians. To while away the time, the men play backgammon, drink tea together or help with chores at the church’s school. The women spend their time mainly caring for their children and helping prepare meals. Mostly, they are haunted by the abrupt end to their lives in Iraq, and to a Christian tradition that had survived in Mosul for more than 1,700 years. Saif Jebrita, a photographer, said he knew it was time to leave when he went to open his shop days after ISIS declared victory and found a notice from the militants demanding that he abandon his profession. The group claims that images are against Islam. “It’s the only thing I know how to do, and they wanted to destroy it,” he said recently as his two young sons stood next to him, fidgeting with broken toy dinosaurs. At St. Ephraim, the 74-year-old who was too anxious to give his name said his greatest worry was the safety of his older son, who remains in Erbil, in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. A younger son, the one who had been kidnapped, is with him, having survived that earlier ordeal. To show what the family had been through, the elderly man carefully laid out photos of his old home on one of the only flat surfaces he has, next to the toothpaste and a small broken mirror. A neighbor sent the photos after the family fled. A letter N for Nazrene, a term used for Christians in the Quran, is spray painted twice on the stone wall surrounding the home, which also is now marked Property of the Islamic State. Mr. Najib, the man who survived the stabbing, said his 8-year-old daughter did not understand that there was nothing to go back to, and had been crying a lot recently, asking to go home. He bemoaned the loss of Mosul’s Christian community. Under the Islamic State, “diversity is dead or at least dying,” he said. Mr. Jebrita, the photographer, shared his despair. “We are very much part of the Arab culture, we are citizens of Iraq,” he said. “What do we go back to? There is no home, and if this continues, there will be no country.” Read in the NYTIMES...

No Syrians Are Allowed Into Jordan, Agencies Say

By RANA F. SWEIS OCT. 8, 2014 AMMAN, Jordan — Jordan is refusing to let Syrian refugees cross the border, international refugee agencies said on Wednesday, expressing fear that thousands have been left stranded with limited access to food and other supplies. “We have not recorded any Syrian refugees crossing into Jordan in the past week,” said Andrew Harper, the top official with the United Nations refugee agency in Jordan. The International Organization for Migration concurred, saying that no Syrians had been taken from the border area to refugee camps in Jordan since Oct. 1, when 44 crossed over. However, the Jordanian government denied that the border had been closed to anyone other than those deemed a security risk. “There is no change on our open-border policy,” said a government spokesman, Mohammad Momani. “Those who are injured, women and children continue to cross, but the numbers of those entering are subject to the security assessment in the field.” Jordan is one of the Middle Eastern countries that have joined the United States-led military campaign against the Islamic State terrorist group in Iraq and Syria. Last month, it sent warplanes to strike the militants in Syria, prompting fears of terrorist reprisals. Analysts said the threat from the Islamic State and allied groups might have prompted stricter border controls. “Tightening the border is a logical reaction from the government’s perspective,” said Manar Rachwani, a columnist and op-ed editor at Al Ghad, an independent daily newspaper, “especially because the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s wing in Syria, is on its border, and they are being targeted by the U.S./Arab-led coalition.” More than three million Syrians, half of them children, have fled the country’s civil war to neighboring countries, including Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan. Until mid-2013, the flow of refugees from Syria to Jordan exceeded 2,000 per day. This rate then dropped to several hundred until last week’s sudden halt, refugee agencies said. As of early October, 1.15 million Syrians had registered with the United Nations refugee agency in Lebanon, it said, and Turkey had absorbed 1.03 million as of late September. Jordan, with a population of 6.5 million, has drawn waves of refugees in the past, but the crisis in Syria is particularly severe and is straining the country’s limited resources. The Syrian civil war, now in its fourth year, has caused an influx of more than 600,000 refugees to Jordan. Jordan’s official news agency, Petra, reported last month that the authorities had arrested several supporters of the Islamic State who were accused of recruiting for the group. In the sprawling border refugee camp in Zaatari, which shelters some 80,000 Syrians, one refugee, Mohamad al-Ghazawi, said aid workers and Syrians in the camp who spoke to relatives this week said refugees were not being allowed to enter. “We heard the severely injured are barely being allowed to cross inside,” he said. Read in the NYTIMES...

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Nima Habashneh: A Woman Who Fought for Equal Rights in Jordan

"It's easier to fight cancer than to fight an archaic mindset." Those were Nima Habashneh's last words on camera before she passed away this week. The 55-year-old Jordanian spent her last decade fighting for the rights of Jordanian women to pass on their citizenship to their spouses and children. Around 84,000 Jordanian women are married to foreign citizens in Jordan with some 340,000 children from these marriages unable, until recently, to access the same basic rights of children with Jordanian nationality. Nima's campaign achieved victory in November last year when the government finally approved to grant certain rights to children of Jordanian women married to foreigners. In 2011, I began following her activism work, saw her at protests and read her petitions. When I began researching more about the struggle of children who felt Jordanian but were alienated legally because their father was a foreigner, I decided to meet Nima and learn about her story. We met on a cold November evening. She was a few minutes late to the interview and when I called her, I suddenly saw her hurrying up the escalator carrying a black bag with her two daughters walking behind her. She wore a beige sweater and a brown hijab and when she saw me, she quickly embraced me even though I had never met her. I remember how she often walked in a hurry and spoke quickly, as if time was never on her side. She was excitable and optimistic even when she spoke about so many obstacles and failures. She told me about her family, how she fell in love with a Moroccan man, and how she refused to move to any other country other than her own. When she had her six children, she never thought that her struggle for their basic rights would become her life-long cause. Like the majority of Jordanian women, she didn't work. All her children began attending school but she found herself having opinions and ideas but not knowing where to express them. She began posting comments in an online chat forum, and then she created a blog. In 2011, when the Arab Spring fever spread across the region and protests were a more common sight, Nima took her online opinions offline and into the streets. She reached out to many women to encourage them to join her in her first protest. She spoke to women like her, who were living in Jordan and also struggling because they were married to foreigners and their children lacked basic rights as non-citizens. None of the women showed up. When she called them, some turned off their cellphones, she told me during the interview. Her Facebook Page called 'My Mother is Jordanian and Her Citizenship is My Right" was hacked. She received threatening messages. Still it didn't take others much time to understand that her campaign was, as she called it, "a national cause". More women began showing up at protests, signed petitions and met regularly. Almost 10,000 people joined her new Facebook page. Nima began appearing on radio stations, demanding she meet with politicians and decision-makers until she eventually found herself at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland speaking about her cause and representing a nation. Nima shared with her online followers the story I wrote about the struggle for gender equality in Jordan. She would call me often to invite me to press conferences or events or she would ask me if I listened to her interview on the radio or her appearance on a television show. As always, she was excitable, warm and busy. Nima was bigger than her cause. For ordinary Jordanian women, they could identify with her -- she did not have a long career, she was not famous or rich. What made her succeed were her acts every single day. It was her focus and determination that became an inspiration and why cartoonists and columnists have eulogized her in newspapers here this week. In some ways she didn't choose her cause, it chose her. It's often said it's a struggle that actually ends up defining a person. Nima took that struggle and she owned it, she squeezed it and carried it proudly on the streets and online where her followers posted today that if one thing is for sure, it is that Nima began this campaign and it will live on. Read in Huffington Post...

The Regression of Human Rights in the Middle East

Huffington Post Blog By Rana F. Sweis With a high death toll in Syria, intensified sectarian strife across the region and a sharp rise in conservatism, it's easy to forget why the Arab Spring actually began. From autocratic regimes to deteriorating press freedoms to consistent corruption, the Middle East was, for the most part, decaying. The past decades in the Middle East saw a decline not only in literacy and culture -- Arabs comprise almost five percent of the world's population, but publish just 1.1 percent of its books, according to the U.N.'s 2003 Arab Human Development Report - but it is also the consistent regression in human rights. When Mohammad Bouazizi set himself on fire in December 2010, it was in protest against injustice, harassment and humiliation. In Egypt, 28-year-old Khalid Said died while in police custody. It was the brutality and abuse inflicted upon him that inspired many to take to the streets. Even in Turkey, an economically prosperous country, it was aggression against protestors that prompted outrage across the country. Even so, human rights issues have taken a back seat as the region continues to face unprecedented change. Despite protests waning, divisions plaguing opposition movements and violence intensifying, one of the biggest challenges facing the Middle East today is the declining state of human rights and the silence of so many democratic governments across the world. From Qatar to Tunisia, artists such as poets, musicians, bloggers have been imprisoned since the revolutions. "The willingness of new governments to respect rights will determine whether those uprisings give birth to genuine democracy or simply spawn authoritarianism in new forms," noted Human Rights Watch in its 2013 world report on challenges for rights after the Arab Spring. "Turning a blind eye to repression may be politically convenient but it does enormous damage to the quests for rights-respecting democracies." Dozens of social media users have been jailed in the Gulf for posting comments on Twitter. "I see freedom of expression as a release valve: people have those thoughts, people have those concerns, they want to articulate them and when a government takes an approach (such as jailing dissidents), what you're really doing is forcing those concerns and debate internally, it doesn't go away," said Ross LaJeunesse, global head of Google's Freedom Expression project. After 16 years of free and unfettered access to the Internet, Jordan blocked nearly 300 news websites this month and enforced an amended press law to regulate online content. And still despite the uplifting of a public assembly law, speech related crimes or simply participating in protests could send you to State Security Court, a special body that has jurisdiction over crimes considered harmful to Jordan's internal and external security -- involving drugs, terrorism, weapons, espionage and treason. In Egypt, 20 organizations announced the decline in the status of human rights in Egypt since Morsi took office last year -- police beatings, torture, military trials and lack of accountability. Earlier this year, an Egyptian prosecutor charged Bassem Yousef, a comedian whose satire brings relief to many Arabs bombarded by constant images of war and violence, of maligning president Mohammad Morsi. Morsi's office claimed the show was, "circulating false news likely to disturb public peace and public security and affect the administration." For many decades, Arabs were denied a platform for expression and in turn they were plagued by internal fear and self-censorship. There is no doubt, after the Arab Spring, an internal barrier of fear was lifted. I see this during labor strikes and protests, in art exhibitions and plays that tend to push previous boundaries but where it will all end remains unclear. Western democracies continue to send a message to people in the Middle East: Security and stability trumps human rights issues. But if there is any lesson to be learned from the Arab Spring, it is indeed that human rights is security. This post is part of a collaboration between The Huffington Post and The Aspen Institute, in which a variety of thinkers, writers and experts will explore the most pressing issues of our time. For more posts from this partnership, click here. For more information on The Aspen Institute, click here. Read more...

HuffPost Blog: Women After the Arab Spring

As Arabs attempt to find their voice and in some cases their political identity, social conservatism seems to be on the rise. Mothers, daughters, and sisters in more rural areas are being punished for the way they dress and for their livelihoods. But in countries with authoritarian leaders -- Libya, Tunisia, Egypt -- who ruled and punished their people for decades, unlocking patriarchy and oppression may take years of debate and social democracy -- not only political democracy. Read more ...

Investigating Truth in Midst of Arab Spring

Contrary to the saying that truth is the first casualty of war, the Arab Spring has overwhelmingly broken a barrier of fear that has presided over the Middle East for decades. Most people in the region are demanding nothing but the truth they also participate by disseminating the news. Some reporters are investigating the truth. For the past few years, I've looked forward to a few days where inspiration and truth collide at the Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalists Conference Nearly 300 investigative journalists from across the Arab world have been meeting to share tools, present work methodologies, network and listen to... Read more...

Searching for Arab Democrats

(Image 'Arab Protests' by Brain Stone -- Twitter: @Brian_Stone860 As I watch the Arab Spring, I recognize the road ahead will be long and difficult. While many Arabs are calling for democracy, the region continues to lack democrats, a key component for any political, cultural and social revolution. Two years ago I interviewed Khaled AlMajali, director of the Jordanian correctional facilities for a story on prison reform. He mentioned the difficulties he faced in persuading officers that the notorious prison system needed reform and that it was not only necessary but also noble. "Every time there is change, there is struggle and resistance," explained AlMajali. "Otherwise it is not really change." I never grasped the significance of his struggle until today. The Arab Spring, though too early to judge, will not succeed without simultaneously working on creating social democrats if we want to see a more prosperous, pluralistic and promising Middle East. I realize many Arabs across the region watched in awe and supported vehemently young Arabs peacefully protesting against injustice. For several days and weeks, it seemed like the whole Arab world was united; our way of life and political systems were no longer tolerable. Although political systems remain to be the core problem, the education system, economic divide, cultural outlook and even social relationships need to be examined as we look forward. Going to the ballot is meaningless without transparent and policy-based elections. As we have learned, it is not enough for Iraqis to show a purple index finger to the cameras or for Arabs to vote in rigged and tribal elections. I grew up in Jordan always thinking that comprehensive reform was in fact the only way a country can survive and become part of the international community. I now know, like AlMajali, that not everyone believes in reform. Arab governments have continued to enforce a system of education that praises rote learning and memorization rather than analysis and critical thinking. The key to change, explains Marwan Muasher of the Carnegie Endowment, is reforming an education system dependent on obedience and one that views pluralism and diversity as a threat. Governments have prevented non-governmental organizations and community leaders from becoming politically active and powerful, fearing their own demise. They have also prevented the press, through direct and indirect means, to act as a watchdog. Ironically, these were all political steps taken by Arab governments to prevent the very thing we are witnessing today. In the aftermath of the toppling of at least two regimes so far and demonstrations taking place across the region, what do we hope to achieve? What kind of society do we want to live in? What role will religion play in the already religious judicial system? Do we want to truly embrace democracy? Democracy is a way of life. Social democrats understand and respect an individual's rights while simultaneously recognizing the concept of citizenship. Until we begin the fundamental process of creating a 'culture' of choice, ownership, leadership, critical thinking and creativity, we will not succeed in achieving comprehensive reform. Follow me on Huffington Post...

The View From Jordan

The country of Jordan is sometimes called a mosaic. It is literally home to one of the oldest mosaics in the world, including the famous Holy Land map. Symbolically, it is also home to many different people who fled war and turmoil in the region. Its stability and hospitality over the years welcomed refugees from Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon and even Sudan. It's a temporary workplace for migrant workers and students, including 500,000 Egyptians and others outside the region. It's a country of nearly six million people. It's also a country that struggles with identity, including political and social identity. When three suicide bombers struck Amman and killed over 60 Jordanians in 2005, there was no doubt people in Jordan were united, both in the way that people do when such a tragedy strikes and in protest. But it is also a country that has witnessed civil unrest in its history and where the notion of citizenship is trumpeted by tribal affiliations, country of origin or even personal interests. In fact, that seems to be what Jordan does not share with Egypt or Tunisia. What we see on our television screens are Egyptians united (for now) in their discontent at the lack of political and economic reform as well as police brutality and humiliation. Jordanians in such a case would be split in their allegiances but not their grievances -- between their discontent with the status quo, their love for their land and suspicion of what others, even in their own society really want to see if serious political reform is implemented. Sometimes people say Amman is Jordan; half the population lives in the capital. Amman is where infrastructure development and investments mostly have taken place. For Jordanians who have not traveled outside of Jordan, Amman is also the place where East meets West, culturally. However, it is hard to ignore the other half of the population. Some Jordanians, who live outside of Amman, commute daily by public transportation to work in large grocery stores, malls, telephone companies, banks, non-governmental organizations, café's and restaurants. What they see is another world, different from theirs: Young students who attend universities and others who have traveled abroad on a grant. They meet customers and colleagues who speak about future plans, opportunities they hope to seek if they work hard or find the right person to help them. Jordanians living outside of Amman return to their homes feeling more frustrated. They feel discouraged. They understand what they don't have. They continue to believe that where they are born defines who they are. If they don't know the right people, they are stuck. If they do badly on a mandatory high school exam, their future is bleak. They feel split between family obligations and their newfound individualism and ambition. Of course, some in Amman also feel this but it seems more profound to those living outside. However, Tunisia and Egypt have sparked an amazing yet cautious sense of hope in young people here. A Jordanian friend of mine who works in Egypt and joined protesters in Tahrir Square recently posted a status update on his Facebook page: "Am I the only one who cannot sleep at night? I leave the television switched on all night on the news, so that even if I doze off I know this isn't just a dream." Jordanians from all walks of life agree that the status quo cannot remain. Economic grievances, including the price of petrol and tomatoes, became the talk of the town this year. Last year, a joke went around town that a famous Jordanian comedian was presented with an award. At the ceremony he posed with a box of tomatoes because it became such a hot commodity. Discontent and apathy in the electoral system turned off a lot of voters in Amman during the last parliamentary elections. In other cities there was a higher turnout; they vote mostly for better civil services in their towns, not politics per say. A friend of mine who just returned from conducting a training workshop for children in the city of Petra said tribes there had a list of grievances -- most wanted better services, including a recreational center for their children. "A small girl came up to me," recalled my friend. "She told me: Please don't go, we want you to teach us. We hate our school and we are so bored here." My friend looked away and then announced, "The town is dead. They have nothing to do." There have been numerous reports in the western media equating Jordan with Tunisia and Egypt. It's an exaggeration. There were nearly a thousand people scattered in the kingdom during a protest I attended last Friday. Indeed, Jordan is like a mosaic. The big picture is clear. The list of grievances heard in Egypt and Tunisia are also heard here: lack of political reform, limited freedom of expression, failed economic reform, high unemployment rate. Nevertheless, when we examine the situation carefully in Jordan, it is difficult to see a united consensus of what exactly reform would mean or what democracy would entail. Will it include a return to the National Agenda Reform? Will it include a change in the press and publication laws? Abandoning the vague anti-terrorism penal code? Imprisonment for writings or speeches that undermine national unity, incite others to commit crimes, sow the seeds of hatred and division in society, disrupt society's basic norms by promoting deviation, spread false information or rumors, incite others to destabilize or organize demonstrations or strikes in contradiction to the law, or commit any act which undermines the dignity and reputation of the state. If democracy is also an evolving culture, will society be willing to move forward and also work to support societal reform? Will reform in the education system, based on memorization and rote learning, be implemented? Last week, the newly appointed prime minister announced familiar steps to improve Jordan. There were also pledges made in the past but they have not been implemented: Greater press freedom, less corruption, political reform, more jobs and transparency. Today Jordanians seem to be waiting. If implementation fails this time around though, I doubt they will remain quiet. Follow me on Huffington Post...

American Military Interventions In Post 9/11 World

A year after the September 11, 2001 attacks on Washington and New York, former President Bush's national security strategy was clear: US interests triumph all else and international institutions would not hinder military actions deemed necessary. Therefore, when contemplating humanitarian interventions, the US would weigh the potential benefits--in terms of foreign lives saved--against the likely costs to the United States. Even if US strategic interests intertwine with internationally accepted humanitarian criteria for humanitarian interventions, it may have consequential effects on the notion of the 'responsibility to protect.' Throughout the 1990s, experiences such as Rwanda, Kosovo and East Timor among others built a momentum towards the idea that governments had a "responsibility to protect" people suffering in complex humanitarian emergencies. However, according to experts like Thomas Weiss, author of 'Military-Civilian Interactions', the September 11th attacks and subsequent US led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, led to two world organizations: "The United Nations, global in members; and the United States, global in reach and power." The primary purpose in a humanitarian intervention must be 'right intention'--to halt or avert human suffering, despite other motives intervening states may have. But the debate after September 11th, shifted to the right to intervene-to protect the intervening country's people from a threat seen to be originating from another country. The debate shifted to self-defense. Samantha Power, author of 'A Problem From Hell', writes that since the September 11th attacks, the "U.S. government is likely to view genocide prevention as an undertaking it cannot afford as it sets out to better protect Americans." Security Council resolutions have authorized the use of armed forces led by US-led coalitions, rather than under the command of the UN. In a humanitarian intervention, the intervening states have the responsibility to rebuild. Since September 11th, none of the US interventions taken were primarily called humanitarian interventions, despite clear complex humanitarian emergencies. But Weiss points out the US led invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq, turned primarily humanitarian. In 2002, a planned operation against Iraq began to surface. The Bush administration called on the UN to enforce its resolutions on Iraq or risk 'irrelevance'. But military intervention without a UN mandate raises questions over a country's motives and capabilities to rebuild in the post-conflict period. The implication of such a reality has also posed a dilemma for the notion of 'neutrality' once forces are deployed on the ground and raises concern among independent aid agencies. With the initial absence of aid organizations in Afghanistan, because of inadequate security on the ground, the military took on the role of humanitarian assistance. But this type of assistance left the Afghan people confused between cluster bombs and aid packages, which threatened civilians. As the invasion of Iraq and the fall of Baghdad loomed, the UN headquarters was bombed. The looting of UNICEF offices, prompted staffers to evacuate. Margrat Hassan, head of CARE International was kidnapped then shot to death. Humanitarian aid became one of the first causalities of war. The 'peace-building' efforts have been hindered by 'security measures' led by the US today in Iraq. Some supporters of humanitarian interventions argue that invasions like Iraq--and humanitarian interventions should be distinguished and are in fact not the same. However, interventionist supporters must also realize that the aftermath of Iraq's invasion may be a good indicator of the complexities of any future humanitarian interventions that may arise if a multi-nation effort is absent, including strong support for the UN. When referring to humanitarian intervention in terms of 'reasonable combination' of both US strategic interests and internationally accepted criteria, it must be better defined. Romeo Dallaire, wrote in a New York Times op-ed entitled, "Looking at Darfur, Seeing Rwanda" that despite receiving more news coverage than the Rwandan genocide, "Western governments are still approaching it [Darfur] with the same lack of priority. In the end, it receives the same intuitive reaction: What's in it for us? Is it in our 'national' interest?" Despite Iraq being a non-humanitarian invasion, the notion of humanitarian intervention at this point has fostered a sense of unpredictability about U.S. responses. It has undermined the confidence of would-be coalition partners as well as the deterrent threat of intervention. The first casualty of these actions has been eroding domestic confidence and support for intervention. Dallaire wrote in the same New York Times op-ed, "Powerful nations like the United States and Britain have lost much of their credibility because of the quagmire of Iraq." As a result, 'right intention' may be only one of the principles that will be primary in future humanitarian interventions, even if the US justifies the humanitarian intervention for strategic reasons, or a 'little bit of both', due to its significance. It is safe to conclude that few Americans believed that the threat of terrorism could affect them directly until September 11, 2001. And it is true, in general, complex humanitarian emergencies are affecting neighboring countries--creating 'bad neighborhoods'--and threatening the globe as in the case of Sudan, Iraq and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Somalia shows how events in a place of little or no apparent strategic interest can have enduring effects. During the current Iraq war, statistics have shown that about twenty five percent of 'foreign' fighters detained are from Africa, especially from East Africa. Conditions in the occupied Palestinian territories--a humanitarian complex emergency--have affected the Middle East region for decades. "Citizens victimized by genocide or abandoned by the international community do not make good neighbors, as their thirst for vengeance and their acceptance of violence as a means of generating change can turn them into future threats," warns Power. However, on the whole, despite the events of September 11th, the international community faces many of the same problems that it faced in the 1990's: Civil wars, failed or failing states and other humanitarian disasters around the globe. Several hundred thousand people a year continue to lose their lives directly to war as well as to war related famine and disease. Almost 90 percent of the dead are innocent non-combatants. In a more global world, there are implications across the planet. But non-intervention or intervention for purely strategic reasons may disregard the Western argument that democracies protect and promote human rights. Does this mean that naturally, in most cases, every humanitarian intervention would be strategic? That may be true in some cases and that is an advantage to those who argue for a combination of both strategic and internationally accepted humanitarian criteria for interventions. The Rwandan genocide destabilized the entire Great Lakes region and it continues to do so today. It created massive refugee camps in eastern Congo and triggered a cycle of warfare in much of central Africa. But the international community has generally failed to come up with rules on how and when to intervene, and under whose authority. And these debates will not go away. Yet, it is imperative to understand that a humanitarian intervention is unique in its core mission--the responsibility to protect, to prevent, to react and to build. Follow me on Huffington Post...

Defining Democracy

"Town meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they bring it within the people's reach..." -- Alexander de Tocqueville, from Democracy in America. On a typical weekday, an ordinary woman from Hempstead, New York taught me an extraordinary lesson on the meaning of democracy. I sat in awe, staring at an elderly American woman with a colored knitted wool cap who could barely walk. She went up to the podium and demanded a playing slide be placed for children in her neighborhood. Of course, it wasn't so much the request that left me speechless but the notetaking, the nodding, the necessity of being heard by decision-makers, representatives and citizens of that town, who acknowledged her request. For a moment, this old lady's voice was heard. It is true that the 'culture' of democracy is not always fully practiced in America. Evidence suggests music was played at ear-splitting levels to "humiliate, terrify, punish, disorient and deprive detainees of sleep" during interrogation. Moreover, Farmingville, Long Island was a scene of the highly publicized racist stabbing of 37-year-old Ecuadorian immigrant, Marcelo Lucero. However, there is a search for truth, discussion and debate--a 'culture' that promotes this. There can be no truth, or even a search for truth, without free discussion and related freedoms of inquiry of thought and opinion. Although the word 'reform' is heard in countries like Jordan, a deep gap remains between what is said and what is seen. Despite being a small Middle Eastern country that continues to live up to its reputation as a mediator and a safe haven between its troubled neighbors, the 'culture' of democracy must include profound moments for ordinary citizens. Representation must be as memorable as the town hall meeting I attended. The fifth Parliamentary elections will be held in Jordan this November. In the absence of true political reform and understanding of political choice and accountability, Jordanians may vote for a relative from their tribe, despite knowing little about a candidate's policies or values. And for some voters, who are mostly apathetic, a small portable heater is all a candidate needs to win their vote. Policies are lost in a meal of rice, pine seeds and meat that triumph over a candidate's vague policies or lack of coherent messages. Parliament does not represent the people if the people do not vote on values and public policies. It is difficult to see signs of true reform in this year's elections and I hope that Jordanians will look beyond the banners that dress the city. It's not that I don't understand the importance of choice. In fact, I have voted in nearly every election, so far. Nevertheless, I am wholeheartedly disenchanted with an elected Parliament that votes to put journalists on trial and a Parliament that cancels sessions because not enough elected officials bother to show up. The latest lassez-faire approach by Parliamentarians led to its own demise; the King dissolved it a few months ago. Since 2001, hundreds of temporary laws imposed by the government were implemented in Jordan. Some promoted economic liberalization and women's rights that have benefited the country, while others such as the 2001 Public Gathering Law--if a permit is denied for a gathering, it cannot be appealed--have effected civil liberties. However, moderates admit that an elected Parliament would not have passed the progressive laws. The government in the past drafted liberal press and publication laws, yet the elected Parliament demanded the arrest of journalists based on so-called 'press crimes'. A democratic 'culture' creates an understanding of an individual's rights while simultaneously recognizing the concept of citizenship. A former government official recalled a story of an elderly colleague who told him offhandedly, "I hope to become a minister and after a week they can fire me. I don't care. I will always be known as a minister and people will always have to respect me." He eventually became a minister. At an 'Honor' Killings conference held in November by a local research foundation, a Parliamentarian raised his hand to speak. He read off some notes. His voice becoming louder, angrier while ignoring the studies being presented, he finally dismissed the whole concept of a conference on 'honor' killings. As he was storming out, a member of Jordan's forensic team stood up and said, 'Don't you want to listen to a reply to your comments? You just want to speak but not listen?' The Parliamentarian walked out. I am, in general, an optimistic person. Optimism is a much better choice. The Middle East, however, remains stagnant and stubborn, reckless and reclusive. And there is a fine line between optimism and denial: the difference between cleaning the dirt, and hiding it. Until we begin the fundamental process of creating a 'culture' of choice, ownership, leadership, critical thinking and creativity, we will continue hiding the dirt. In the absence of such cultural traits, I have come to conclude that work ethics cannot be acquired on the job. Democracy is an evolving culture. It begins at home--choosing activities, respecting other opinions, food preference. It evolves at school--creativity, critical thinking, analysis. What is our political culture? I try hard to search for this 'culture' of democracy. It is scarce and sporadic like an unfinished work of art. It may be in a 140 character tweet with a #JO for Jordan, a literacy program for street children or in the excitement of a talented violinist. It is seldom seen in a big place here. Sometimes, I wonder if we will reach a point where the meaning of democracy is not only political but also cultural, intertwined in the decisions we seek and make in our relationships and activities. When we hear that democracy is a journey, I believe this is the journey of which they speak. Elections are not. They are the end results, and much is lost in between. When I look back at that winter day in New York, I realize it was a silent epiphany for me. For Americans in the room, it was politics as usual. It was already embedded in their daily life. Follow me on Huffington Post...

Worrying for America

Recently I met with Majed, an elderly Arabic schoolteacher in Amman, Jordan. Not long ago, he taught me Arabic, and we still meet occasionally to talk about the media in Jordan. He lives in a small clay mud brick house in Amman and has 10 children. He asked me about my recent trip to the US. To my surprise, I found myself telling Majid that the confident, energetic America I had come to know during my college years in the States was almost unrecognizable. I told him that America is facing challenges--people are losing their homes, losing their jobs and millions can no longer afford health insurance. They elected a new President, I told him, to try to help them. As I spoke to the schoolteacher, President Obama's themes of hope and change rung in my head. Images flashed through my mind of the thousands of young and old Americans lining the streets of Chicago hoping to be part of history. Majid shook his head in disbelief and said: "I will pray for them." During my trip to the U.S. in November, I was conscious of an uncomfortable role-reversal. In the past, I had become used to being accosted by Americans who want to talk to me about creating job opportunities for frustrated, unemployed Arabs. This time, American friends worried about losing their jobs turned to me for comfort. I saw thousands of Americans lining the streets to attend what was ludicrously termed a "job fair" in New York. Bill, a college friend, told me job fairs are the new soup kitchens. Instead of speaking of the future, we ended up reminiscing about the 'roaring' 90's. Today, Bill works at Citibank. I read that 50,000 Citibank employees will be laid off in the next few months. Everyday, I hope that Bill doesn't lose his job. I saw many homeless and scarred Gulf War vets sleeping on the crowded and cold corner of Columbus circle in Manhattan. I found myself comforting a store clerk at my favorite retail store because she had heard rumors that her store was closing down. The next day, I stopped to acknowledge a lonely flautist and a grungy guitarist in the subway. The open guitar case inviting donations sitting in front of him was empty. I assured an American friend, who left Jordan to study law in New York, that a new US administration will bring a sense of optimism. Then we found ourselves staring at the front page of the business section with a photo depicting young lawyers packing their bags and heading to Dubai. At the neighborhood drug store, another American told me about his struggle to finish film school and his diminishing hope that images will make a difference in this world. The Fletcher family, who graciously invited me for Thanksgiving dinner in Long Island, gathered to gaze at a computer screen. The images were of palm-tree shaped hotels and an indoor ski resort in Dubai. Their enthusiasm reminded me of photos I saw of Disney World when I was a child in Jordan and, later when I was older, my impressions of Las Vegas. On my visit to New York, I awakened every morning and promised the newspaper seller I would continue buying the print version of his newspaper. It hardly eased his worries as the newspaper industry continues to suffer unparalleled layoffs and diminishing revenue. I returned to an unexpected continuing boom in Jordan--a Middle Eastern country with scarce natural resources that is currently the second largest recipient of US aid in the world per capita next to Israel. While American newspapers file for bankruptcy, a single Jordanian news website has already hit the million mark, surpassing both print and broadcast media in the country. As the American franchise restaurant Bennigan's filed for bankruptcy this summer, Jordanian families exuberantly packed the newly built Bennigan's in Amman. The restaurant remains open. And when Americans were Googling the address of their favorite neighborhood Starbucks to see if it was closing down, I was surprised to see three newly Starbucks springing in my Amman neighborhood. On my last day in New York, a French-Jewish woman decided to tell me the story of her journey from France to New York before selling me a suitcase. "I work day and night here so my son can go to university," she told me. "I don't sleep often." An Arab-American cab driver mentioned that in America at least he did not have to worry about access to hot and cold water or heating. "I am sure Americans will not starve. That is good, no?" Our conversation reminded me of a story I read on the debate brewing over the use of the SAT for college admissions. Only a few weeks later, I read that many young Americans will not even afford to go to college. When I was called to speak on a panel regarding the Middle East at CUNY, a former CBS veteran correspondent told me she had traveled across the US but was convinced the best Sushi she has ever tasted was at a jazz bar in the Middle East. I returned to Jordan a few weeks ago, and immediately noticed that local hip-hop concerts and standup comedy shows were selling out in Amman. The Mayor created the first ever standup comedy festival in the Middle East, showcasing up-and-coming comedic talent and encouraging more Jordanians to get involved in comedy. A representative from my graduate school and I met over lunch in Amman and wondered how the university might strengthen and support international alumni activities and programs. Could USAID in Jordan fund it? Then we looked at each other and laughed: American foreign aid would be returning to an American university. Follow me on Huffington Post...

Spectrum policy reforms

JOURNAL OF INFORMATION POLICY 3 (2013): 552-574. SPECTRUM POLICY REFORMS: SUPPORTING DEMOCRACY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN JORDAN BY RANA F. SWEIS, BENJAMIN LENNETT, † AND TOM GLAISYER‡ The true role of new communications technologies in the dramatic events of the “Arab Spring” in 2011 is still under discussion, but wireless communications were certainly used widely by activists and protesters. This article uses events in Jordan as a case study, and the authors argue that reform of that country’s spectrum licensing policies and speech laws is essential for future democratic progress and economic development. The authors combine research into Jordan’s emergent high-tech industry, and successful and equitable spectrum policies in the United States, to form a series of policy recommendations for the Jordanian government. INTRODUCTION Today, lip service to reform will not be enough... Action must be taken to appease an increasingly skeptical public. Arab governments should start by acknowledging reality and putting their countries on a track of political reform.1 It is difficult to have a conversation about the Middle East and North Africa without acknowledging the dramatic impact of the Arab Spring; not just for those states where existing governments have been overturned, but also in countries whose leaders are struggling to change in the face of a tidal wave of protests for further democratic reform. Though there are a number of competing and complementing theories as to what exact factors led to those dramatic events, modern communication technologies played a significant role. Activists and non-activists created content on their mobile phones and other devices and distributed it to their friends, families, and observers through online tools such as blogs, social media, and e-mail.2 According to Eltantawy and Wiest, online social media played a dramatic role in changing “the dynamics of social mobilization” in Egypt.3 “Social media introduced speed and interactivity that were lacking in the traditional mobilization techniques, which generally include the use of leaflets, posters, and faxes. For instance, social media enabled domestic and international Egyptian activists to follow events in Egypt, join social-networking groups, and engage in discussions.”4 Mainstream television and satellite channels then redistributed the online content. Thus, as Ben Wagner argues in the context of the Tunisian protests, “...television, a traditional medium, helped the Internet, a new medium, disseminate information about the Tunisian protests, because those who could not access YouTube could still watch Al-Jazeera.”5 At the core of this communications ecosystem is spectrum. Mobile phones, wireless Internet, and traditional over-the-air television and radio broadcasters all require access to spectrum to offer their respective communications media. This article examines current spectrum policies in the country of Jordan not to focus on disruptive revolutionary change, but to argue that reforming spectrum policy can help support stable democratic progress in Jordan and promote economic growth. In the 21st Century, spectrum is a vital component to creating a vibrant media and communication environment. Spectrum is heavily involved in enabling speech and communication, so the way in which nations determine who has access to spectrum and for what purposes it is used can substantially impact the content of news and media as well as citizens’ access to information and engagement in civil discourse and commerce. Compared to other countries in the MENA (Middle East/North Africa) region, Jordan is in a unique position to make reforms to its current spectrum policies in order to not only support democratic reforms, but also to spur innovation and economic development. Jordan is already home to a promising number of Internet startups and innovators. As written by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times, Oasis500, an “Arab-owned high-tech accelerator” reminiscent of a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, is headquartered in the capital of Amman and has helped seed “dozens of Arabic-content Internet start-ups.”6 Venture capitalists financed 66 technology companies in the region in 2011 compared to just 17 in 2010, according to a report released in 2012 by Sindibad Business.7 The investments made in 2011 created an estimated 450 jobs, while another 23 companies attracted financing in the first quarter of 2012.8 While the economic impact of the technology sector remains small, reforming spectrum policies to enable more robust and universal mobile broadband and wireless communications could help it grow further. In this article, we suggest policies that would enable Jordan to more effectively utilize its spectrum resources to benefit democratization, innovation, and economic development. We first review the current rules around spectrum use in Jordan. What we find is that current broadcast policy and press and publication laws are restricting free expression and the development of both commercial and non- commercial news and information outlets. Moreover, there are limited opportunities for new innovators, entrepreneurs, and citizens to gain access to spectrum not just for broadcasting, but also to create new business models for mobile and wireless broadband. We evaluate Jordan’s current spectrum policies and propose reforms by drawing upon lessons learned in the United States. Despite substantial differences between the two countries, the U.S. has a long history of spectrum policy changes and reforms that could offer useful lessons for Jordan. Based upon the U.S. experience, the article offers practical reforms for Jordan’s current spectrum policies on the basis of four principles: transparency, access, competition, and openness. The proposed reforms focus on removing current limitations on news and political programming, lowering barriers to using spectrum for new innovators and citizens through greater license-exempt access, and requiring exclusively-licensed mobile operators to provide access to an open Internet. Coupled with recommendations for spectrum reforms, this article argues that Jordan also needs to address fundamental problems with its press freedom and speech policies which impart a chilling effect on media and news content through both traditional broadcasting and the Internet, ultimately resulting in a negative impact on economic development. Reforming spectrum policy and minimizing restrictions on freedom of speech can foster a thriving media sector and technological innovation to support economic development. OVERVIEW OF CURRENT SPECTRUM REGULATION IN JORDAN In recent years, Jordan has liberalized its spectrum policies to expand the number of non-state- affiliated broadcast outlets as well as encourage the growth of mobile telecommunications services like 3G and 4G. The 2002 Audio Visual Law officially ended the government monopoly on broadcasting and established the Audiovisual Commission (AVC) to license and regulate private radio and television outlets. The law has resulted in the licensing of dozens of independently owned radio stations and regional satellite television stations. It is further expected that operations of the AVC will soon be placed under the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission. However, most of the radio stations registered with AVC today offer entertainment-based content and shy away from political programming. This is due to several factors, including licensing fees, which are set somewhere between 25,000 and 100,000 Jordanian dinars (approximately $35,000 and $140,000 USD) depending on the license.9 In comparison to the United States, these fees are particularly high. The U.S. charges minimal regulatory fees to commercial broadcasters based on the size of the market and audience and exempts noncommercial broadcasters. For example, annual regulatory fees for radio stations do not exceed $11,500 and fees on broadcast television licenses range from as high as $86,000 for stations in the top ten media markets to just $12,000 for stations in lower-ranked markets.10 In Jordan, until August 2012 fees were 50% higher for radio and television stations that wanted to air news and political programming.11 Although this particular barrier has been removed, at least temporarily, would-be news broadcasters face an additional hurdle in that they must submit a schedule and description of content with their license applications.12 The current rules also give the government the ability to reject licenses without providing a reason.13 According to Daoud Kuttab, director general of Community Media Network, which runs Radio al Balad in Amman and the AmmanNet.net website, his applications for radio broadcast licenses for two stations were refused without explanation by the AVC.14 The first was in the city of Zarqa during 2006 and the other was in the Jordan Valley region during 2008. The case went to the Supreme Court of Jordan but Kuttab said, “They would still not give us a reason.”15 Independent journalists have also complained that loopholes in the Audio Visual Law favor state-run media and skew the playing field towards the detriment of private outlets. For example, the government has only given waivers of the fees to radio stations based in state universities, a government-controlled station in Amman, and a police-owned station, AMEN FM.16 AMEN FM has access to government-owned antennas and transmitters which cover the entire county while private stations do not have the same privileges. In addition, AMEN FM refuses to share traffic reports acquired from police helicopters with other stations.17 Stations such as Al-Balad Radio, a non-profit, community radio station, do not have access to such expensive broadcasting equipment and therefore can only reach a limited listening area.18 Nevertheless, since the Audio Visual Law was introduced in 2002, it has contributed to increased diversity and choice for listeners as well as to the establishment of the first community radio station, Al-Balad. However, Jordan currently lacks adequate press and free speech protections and has media legislation that creates substantial obstacles in the development of a free and independent press. The Jordanian government has a history of interfering with the independent press in order to achieve certain standards of publication. In 1967, the government imposed regulations on the five existing independently-owned newspapers, requiring them to publish a minimum number of pages in each issue and for a minimum number of days each week.19 Additionally, much like the licensing process for radio and television stations, members of the press must be licensed and given specific credentials from the government.20 The government for many years imposed strict martial law which had significant effects on free speech and news publications. In 1991, the Jordanian government reformed the most oppressive measures within the press and publications laws, but in more recent years, the government has increasingly implemented measures to restrict press freedom and free speech.21 For example, laws such as the 1998 Press and Publication Law restrict news and reporting critical of the royal family or the armed forces (for example), even if a broadcast license is in the hands of the journalistic organization. Article 7 of the law requires that journalists refrain from publishing anything that might incite violence or discord among citizens. The law includes fines of up to 28,000 dinars ($39,500 USD) for speech that offends religion, the prophet, or the government.22 Similarly, Article 37 prohibits the press from publishing anything that, among a long list of other prohibited activities, disparages the King and Royal Family, commentary that is harmful to the Jordanian Armed Forces, or content that incites strikes, sit-ins, or public gatherings in violation of the provisions of the law. Although there is no evidence of publishers explicitly restricting their employees from covering certain topics, a great deal of self-censorship remains.23 According to a 2010 survey by the Centre for Defending Freedom of Journalists, journalists tended to avoid criticism of the armed forces (97%), criticism of the judicial authorities (90%), criticism of the security apparatus (87%), criticism of tribal leaders (85%), discussion of religious issues (81%), criticism of leaders of Arab countries (79%), and discussion of issues related to sex (76%).24 Since the Arab Spring began, however, the level of self- censorship has decreased, according to a study on the status of press freedom by the Al Quds Centre for Political Studies, an independent research center. In 2010, 94% of Jordanian journalists surveyed said they self-censored, but in 2011 self-censorship declined to 86%, a shift that could be attributed to the Arab Spring.25 Regardless of these improvements, journalists have reportedly been arrested or even attacked after the Arab Spring.26 In July 2011, the Committee to Protect Journalists called on the government of Jordan to prevent attacks on journalists who cover demonstrations and other forms of civil unrest.27 During a demonstration in Amman in July 2011, security forces beat 16 journalists wearing orange vests that identified them as press during a demonstration and planned sit-in that rapidly devolved into clashes between security personnel, government supporters, and demonstrators.28 Moreover, the Jordanian government announced a bill in August 2012 to alter the existing press and publications law to allow for more control and censorship of local news websites by forcing them to register with the government. The bill would have likely increased instances of self-censorship by making online news sites liable for all content, including reader comments. The proposals followed closely on the heels of the government’s approval of another amendment which would have required Internet service providers to block and censor websites carrying pornographic content.29 To protest these bills, over 150 websites in Jordan voluntarily went dark on August 29, 2012.30 Despite these protests, in early June 2013 the head of the Jordanian Press and Publications Department ordered the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission to shut down over 250 news-related websites.31 Although Jordanians have limited access to locally-produced news programming as a result of the above restrictions, nearly all of the 97% of the households in the Kingdom with a television set have satellite reception.32 Thus, political discourse about regional revolutions across the Arab world and beyond have surely reached Jordanian viewers. Networks like Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, which broadcasted coverage of the Arab Spring, pose a challenge to local government channels in the region, including Jordan Television, which is government-owned and whose director is appointed by the Council of Ministers. Furthermore, the Internet has afforded independent radio programmers an opportunity to reach audiences beyond their limited broadcast area and to broadcast online when they are not given a license. As noted above, many Internet news sites have been censored by the nation’s telecommunication regulator. However, these actions seem not to have spiraled into government- mandated filtering of all web content, but have instead largely focused on news programming deemed inappropriate by the state.33 Wireless and Mobile Communications Jordan’s Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) was established to regulate the telecommunications and information technology sectors and is responsible for allocating spectrum for telecommunications and other services. The TRC generally follows frequency allocations as set by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) definitions. The TRC’s established spectrum allocation process for mobile and wireless services follows a spectrum market-based approach similar to that in many industrialized nations. The Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (MoICT) notes in its 2007 Statement of Government Policy that the TRC leaves the market to decide who will be allocated spectrum and adopts spectrum pricing in accordance with market demand (using auctions where appropriate), and prevents the anti-competitive acquisition or hoarding of spectrum by dominant operators.34 While supporting the use of auctions, the TRC emphasizes that auctions should be held with simple, understandable, non-discriminatory, and transparent rules. No bidder should be permitted to hold more than one license and all available spectrum licenses should be utilized. It also states that the efficient outcome of the process can be described in terms of the licenses being awarded to those parties with the best and strongest business plans. As such, the bidding process for mobile spectrum is not a traditional auction of the spectrum to the highest bidder (as it is in countries like the U.S.), but rather includes an administrative selection process known as an award system. The decision is made based on the judges’ assessment of the bidder’s planned services, prices, and rollout speed and usually favors those bidders who might guarantee the lowest cost to consumers, invest the most in infrastructure, and stimulate innovation.35 According to the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology, “there are now 24 individual licensees who are eligible to use spectrum, apart from broadcast licenses.”36 MoICT is responsible for regulation of telecommunications in Jordan, which had previously been managed by state-owned Jordan Telecom until 1995 (of which the government now owns 11.6% of company shares). In 1995, Jordan’s mobile sector started expanding when Fastlink (now known as Zain) became the first operator to provide mobile telecommunication services through GSM technology. In 1999 MobileCom (now known as Orange) was granted a license to provide mobile cellular service, and in 2003 Xpress was granted the first license to provide radio trunking services.37 A year later, yet another competitor, Umniah, entered the market and was granted a license to provide mobile telephone services. Additionally, in 2006, five companies were granted licenses for fixed wireless broadband provision.38 Fixed-line, mobile, and data services generate annual revenue of around 836.5 million Jordanian dinars ($1.18 billion USD), which is equivalent to 13.5% of GDP . In the mobile sector, Zain holds the largest share (39%), followed by Orange (36%) and Umniah (25%). Prices for basic mobile service have dropped in recent years, resulting in cellphone adoption in excess of 100%.39 Umniah has recently launched its 3G service,40 and Orange has been considering investing in upgrades from its 2G and 3G services to 4G services by 2015,41 after it was granted a 3G license by the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) in 2009.42 Additionally, the use of USB dongles for mobile Internet access has increased in recent years. REFORMING JORDAN’S SPECTRUM POLICIES TO SUPPORT DEMOCRACY, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, AND INNOVATION Reformed spectrum policies can encourage new innovators and entrepreneurs in the media, communications, and Internet marketplace as well as facilitate democratic discourse. In evaluating Jordan’s current spectrum policies and developing proposed reforms, we draw upon lessons learned in the United States. Despite differences between Jordan and the United States, the U.S. experience can offer examples of successful and less-than-successful spectrum policies that can help to inspire reforms in Jordan. In developing recommendations for spectrum reforms, we identify a set of broad principles and then propose more specific policy approaches to encourage a more vibrant news and media sector, increase Internet access, and spur new innovation and economic development in Jordan. Principles for Spectrum Allocation in Jordan The first principle we recommend is transparency with respect to the process of awarding licenses. We also insist that rules should be applied equally across services. For example, the Federal Communications Commission in the United States follows a standardized set of processes when determining the allocation of spectrum, there is an opportunity for public comment in most decisions, and the agency must provide justifications for every decision. Those decisions can also be appealed to the courts. By contrast, decisions related to the granting of spectrum licenses in Jordan appear to have no requirements for transparency, allowing the government to reject licenses without justification or public input.43 Secondly, we recommend that a diversity of actors, including non-commercial entities, should have access to spectrum with respect to both traditional broadcasting and wireless broadband. Edward Cavanaugh, writing about consolidation among radio broadcasters in the U.S., noted that “fewer owners... [leads] to fewer choices for radio listeners and hence reduced content diversity”44 – a perspective that can also be applied to spectrum policy. Moreover, as recent news and journalism industry challenges in the U.S. reveal, excessive reliance on a commercial sector to serve the information needs of a nation is problematic, so policies should encourage a diversity of business models including non-profit and community-owned broadcasting outlets. Similarly, open, license- exempt spectrum access technologies such as Wi-Fi can also allow for new entrants and community- owned or non-profit networks to provide affordable Internet access as well as serve as an alternative to large mobile network operators that have the resources to purchase exclusive licenses. The third principle we propose is competition. This can be accomplished in several ways, but should incorporate policies that reduce barriers to entry for new companies as well as the allocation of exclusive licenses in a manner that prevents consolidation of licenses among a small handful of companies. Such policies may also include requiring interoperability of equipment and devices to enable customers to easily switch between providers. Other competitive policies such as open access requirements, wherein a provider agrees to allow competitors to lease capacity on their network for a reasonable fee, may be necessary to support robust competition. Lastly, we recommend a fourth principle: openness. Openness requirements are particularly critical for mobile and wireless broadband services, where providers have proposed or taken action to block, limit or control what content, applications, and services users can access on their networks. Policies such as network neutrality or open Internet rules to prevent operators from interfering with or discriminating against Internet content and applications can be enacted to promote the free flow of information and ideas, and to maintain the Internet as a platform for innovation and economic opportunity. While network neutrality rules are often criticized for limiting the potential efficiency gains and profits for providers that could be associated with a discriminatory network, the overall social benefit of the Internet is maximized under a system of openness rules.45 In addition to the maintenance of non-discriminatory practices by service providers, the government should refrain from requiring operators to filter specific content or block websites on mobile and wireless networks. The principle of openness can be extended broadly to spectrum access and allocation to enact policies that promote open access to spectrum, such as license-exempt usage or opportunistic usage which allow for innovative new uses and business models. PROPOSED REFORMS Below, we develop specific recommendations for Jordan that draw upon the above principles, focusing on spectrum policy reforms that address the most predominant concerns in the country. As noted above, independent of spectrum regulation, there are significant challenges with respect to the content of media (whether through traditional broadcasting or the Internet) in states where the freedoms of speech and press are not legally protected or where there is a legitimate potential for government interference. The lack of protections can have a chilling effect on programming that hinders both speech and the development of a vibrant media sector. Furthermore, the recent amendments to the Press and Publications Law discussed earlier have had a chilling effect on free speech and the growth of online media in Jordan. Free speech and freedom of the press underpin a diverse and thriving media and communications sector; minimizing restrictions on speech and protecting journalists is as important as spectrum reforms for promoting economic development and democracy. Lower Barriers for News and Political Programing by Radio and Television Broadcasters As previously noted, Jordan levies very high fees to obtain a broadcast license and, for a period of time, the fees were 50% higher for radio and television stations that wanted to air news and political programming. The overall effect was to prioritize entertainment programming and discourage news and political programming since it was more costly to both commercial and non-commercial outlets. Spectrum fees are quite common and used in many countries around the world.46 In contrast to Jordan, the U.S. does not currently levy any spectrum fees on broadcast licensees.47 This policy decision dates back to the 1927 Communications Act, which established a framework that has continued to shape thinking around spectrum allocation and broadcast media for nearly a century. In the act, the U.S. Congress granted broadcasters exclusive use of designated frequencies in exchange for commitments to serve the public interest.48 Subsequently, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was granted broad authority by the 1927 and 1934 Communications Acts in establishing and modifying the public interest commitments or obligations required of broadcasters.49 Whether this approach has met Congress’s aspirations to serve the public interest is certainly debatable, and over time, commercial broadcasters have wielded their influence at the FCC and Congress to weaken specific requirements or their enforcement. Currently, the remaining obligations expect that broadcasters will provide educational programming for children, local culture and community affairs programming, electoral campaign coverage and civic information, information during states of emergency, and access to those who are visually or aurally disabled.50 Some media advocates in the U.S. have proposed adopting spectrum fees for commercial broadcast licenses in an effort to secure revenues from valuable spectrum assets for the federal budget, and as a means to obtain a more direct benefit for the public interest from commercial broadcasters. For example, former General Counsel of the FCC, Henry Geller, has long argued that “broadcasters ignore the local public interest, that the ‘public trustee’ framework established in the 1950s is broken. [Instead] of trying to make broadcasters play by the rules we should just make them pay a reasonable fee to support public broadcasting.”51 Geller’s proposal would require a spectrum usage fee of five percent of gross advertising revenues on commercial broadcast television licensees.52 In Jordan, spectrum fees on broadcast licensees appear to be motivated largely by a desire to limit the number of outlets seeking to distribute news and information programming. As noted, previous spectrum licensing configurations had effectively prioritized entertainment content by assessing higher fees for outlets seeking to broadcast news and information. Although the higher fees for news broadcasting have now been cancelled, the barriers to entry for new broadcasters are still high, especially for broadcasting entities focused on more costly and generally less profitable news gathering efforts. Whether lowering license fees is politically feasible remains unclear. Part of the challenge in reducing the licensing fees is that the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission is covered through the annual license fees that it collects and does not receive funding support from the general treasury.53 Thus, it seems the TRC requires high license fees in order to sustain itself. Although it is unclear how opposed the Commission would be to lowering the fees (and thus losing out on revenue), there is an alternative approach that could maintain the necessary revenue while improving the sustainability of non-commercial and news-oriented outlets: the TRC could collect a more modest upfront license fee and then collect an annual fee based upon a small percentage of advertising revenues. A five percent fee on gross advertising revenues could potentially raise more money for the TRC as well as limit the financial burden on licensees that emphasize news and information programming. Allow Open Access to License-Exempt Spectrum Given the eroding dominance of broadcasting in the 21st Century and the convergence of media on broadband networks, the results of spectrum allocations will fundamentally shape the communications landscape. The impact of this changing landscape may be even greater in countries where frequencies allocated to over-the-air television are even more underutilized than in countries of the European Union and the United States. The transition to digital from analog television freed upwards of 100 MHz of spectrum in some nations; this could be even larger in MENA countries and could provide a boon for increasing access and innovation in broadband. Spectrum allocated to broadcast television is ideally suited for serving wide areas with mobile and wireless broadband. Thus, how Jordan allocates these incredibly valuable spectrum resources will have a significant impact on the state of innovation and access to communications in the nation. Beginning in the 1990s, with advances in wireless communications and mobile phones, the U.S. replaced a comparative hearings model for the licensing of spectrum with competitive auctions in which the license is given to the highest bidder. The statute providing authority for the FCC to organize spectrum auctions did not specify the extent to which auction revenues should direct federal spectrum policy, only instructing the FCC to “pursue the public interest” and forbidding them from “merely equating the public interest with auction revenue.”54 But even as recent spectrum auctions have resulted in billions of dollars for the federal treasury, the United States has seen competition suffer greatly and consolidation increase in the absence of competition policies. Currently, two companies, Verizon Wireless and AT&T Wireless, control over 75% of spectrum licenses auctioned since the 1990s.55 Although regulators blocked AT&T’s attempted acquisition of T-Mobile in 2011, both Sprint and T-Mobile, the third and fourth largest providers, are struggling to keep up with the two leading providers. Compared to the two market leaders, T-Mobile, Sprint, and smaller regional and rural providers are facing a spectrum crunch as data consumption has substantially increased, limiting their ability to scale up their networks.56 Substantially increasing the amount of license-exempt access to spectrum has also been proposed as a way to increase competition in mobile and wireless broadband in the U.S., while also increasing the capacity of networks to keep up with consumer demand for bandwidth.57 License-exempt access to spectrum has become a critically important driver for new technologies and broadband connectivity because they offer an open and level playing field. Typically, spectrum is allocated on specific frequency bands that are granted to users who maintain exclusive rights to the use of the frequency. In the practice of license-exempt spectrum access, rather than establishing a hierarchy of rights and limiting access, spectrum is considered more of an open space, available to all but with established norms or rules for use (i.e. equipment standards). The benefits of license-exempt spectrum include more efficient use through spectrum sharing (i.e. more traffic can be carried), reduced barriers to entry for new providers, and greater experimentation and innovation.58 Originally, license-exempt spectrum allocations such as the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands in the U.S. were considered “junk bands” with limited value and few possibilities for viable use. However, as digital radio technologies developed and the importance of inter-device connectivity grew, this license-exempt spectrum allocation provided an essential open platform to support applications that had not been previously anticipated. In the U.S. and around the world, license-exempt spectrum in the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz ranges is heavily utilized by Wi-Fi capable devices such as home wireless routers, laptops, and smartphones. In addition, mainstream cellular providers in the U.S. like AT&T and Verizon regularly use Wi-Fi to augment their own mobile broadband service offerings and offload smart phone data traffic from their mobile networks.59 Wi-Fi equipment is also utilized in the U.S. by small, mostly rural-based wireless Internet service providers (WISPs) and to build community wireless networks by local governments or NGOs that provide affordable or free wireless Internet access. Indeed, license- exempt access has been critical to providing Internet access in most rural communities where WISPs and other entities that do not have access to the capital to purchase spectrum at auction make widespread use of the open spectrum without paying any licensing fees. Among the most recent innovations that license-exempt spectrum has provided is the increasing and rapid advance of mesh wireless networking. Rather than relying on a centralized build-out and hierarchical architecture, mesh networking allows users to literally build the network organically over time as devices connect to other devices to create a web of connectivity.60 This in turn lays the groundwork for a network that encourages community and civic uses by creating a community-level intranet. Intranets are common to businesses, where computers connect to share Internet connectivity, printer, and file server access via a local area network (LAN). In a mesh network, devices across the community can be connected to form a community wide-LAN or intranet that allows users to communicate to other local users on the network, create and share content, and design local applications and services to run on the intranet.61 For example, the Athens Metropolitan Wireless Network in Greece “has created dozens of services and applications for its members. These include an auction site wBay; a search engine Woogle; a channel for user-created content wTube... weather reports for each Greek island; and webcams that broadcast traffic, among other applications.”62 Similar to license-exempt use is opportunistic use. Advances in smart or cognitive radio and software- defined radio technologies have fundamentally expanded the options available to increase use of spectrum. This especially holds true for use within vacant or unused spectrum, often referred to as “white spaces,” where smart radios can rapidly scan and process spectrum usage in real time, identify unused frequencies, and utilize these frequencies rather than leaving them fallow.63 In November 2008, the FCC opened these vacant television channels to license-exempt wireless devices.64 These devices are required to employ signal-sensing technologies and a geo-locational database to automatically detect occupied television frequencies and other protected users in the band.65 Currently, the Federal government in the U.S. has exclusive rights to substantial amounts of spectrum, much of it only used sporadically.66 The challenge for Jordan and other MENA countries is to reallocate the spectrum freed up by transitioning to digital television in a manner that maximizes the efficient use of spectrum and, in doing so, enable innovators and new services to emerge. The policy of the TRC is to leave the market to decide who will be assigned spectrum allocation. Auctions are no panacea and can lead to overpricing, speculative bidding by entities looking to flip licenses for a quick profit, and can give an inherent competitive advantage to big players with financial strength to out-bid smaller players or new startups.67 Policymakers should utilize a broad set of spectrum allocation options to promote both competition and continued innovation. In order for this to occur, access to the airwaves for license- exempt and opportunistic use must be firmly established. To truly take advantage of the potential of license-exempt spectrum to spur broadband connectivity and innovation, Jordan needs to reform its regulatory requirements to streamline and eliminate any hurdles that could make it difficult for new startups or communities to utilize existing allocation of typically license-exempt spectrum. In Jordan, the TRC permits users to utilize typically license-exempt Wi-Fi on a personal basis without any specific requirement. However, some providers that use spectrum to provide Internet access must go through the agency and pay a licensing fee. One immediate reform would be to eliminate any TRC licensing fees for providers using Wi-Fi technologies and operating on open spectrum such as in 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. Second, Jordan should embrace leading-edge models for opportunistic spectrum access such as wireless devices and equipment using the vacant TV channels currently being developed in the U.S. and U.K. In order to enable flexibility in the future to create the space for these new technologies, Jordan should also focus on time-limited, exclusive spectrum licenses. Thus, rather than giving exclusive spectrum licenses for mobile providers in perpetuity, clearly establishing shorter renewal timelines of five years would give the TRC the ability to repurpose the spectrum for new and advanced models of usage as wireless technologies rapidly evolve. Maintain an Open Internet on Mobile Broadband Networks Since the exclusive allocation of spectrum to users such as mobile broadband operators involves a tradeoff between a commercial entity’s interests and the public’s access to the use of that spectrum, it is justified to require exclusive licensees to serve the public interest, convenience, and necessity. Low barriers to entry have been the key to much of the Internet’s success in bringing new voices and more conversation into the public sphere, and the creation of new media platforms and services in a market in which individuals and organizations have been able to experiment and innovate with new technologies and reach audiences on an equal footing. Broadcasting requires a certain scale of operation, whereas an open Internet can enable a world in which programming can reach households on terms similar to any large and established commercial content provider. Internationally, mobile providers have often demonstrated a desire to dictate the content and applications that are available over their networks, contributing to the proliferation of “walled gardens” of competing Internet application stores with gatekeepers, tied to specific devices and networks that look vastly different from accessing the Internet via PCs in the wired world. These corporate-controlled “walled gardens” undermine the Internet’s openness, and risk creating a world in which new innovators and non-commercial entities would simply be unable to afford the price of a ticket on the networks that carry the world’s communications.68 There is a long and unfortunate history of gatekeepers consistently leveraging their market power to prioritize profit and commercial interests over the public interest when there is a lack of regulatory protection. 68 Federal Communications Commission (United States), In the Matter of Further Inquiry Regarding Two Under-developed Issues in the Open Internet Proceeding, Comments of the Center for Social Media, GN Docket No. 09-191, Oct. 12, 2010, accessed Dec. 13, 2013, http://www.cmsimpact.org/sites/default/files/documents/pages/csm_comments_before_fcc.pdf. The present paragraph is adapted from these comments from the Center for Social Media to the FCC. After a number of years of debate, the FCC enacted open Internet requirements in 2010 for U.S. broadband providers that included three basic rules: 1) transparency with respect to a provider’s network management practices; 2) no blocking of lawful content, applications, services, or non- harmful devices; and 3) no unreasonable discrimination in transmitting a lawful network over a consumer’sbroadbandInternetaccessservice.69 However,itweakenedtherulesformobilebroadband operators, only requiring that operators disclose their network management practices, and not to block “consumers from accessing lawful websites... [or] applications that compete with the provider’s voice or video telephony services.”70 The decision to loosen the rules for mobile operators was not without its share of dissenters at the FCC; Commissioner Michael Copps noted in his concurring opinion, “...the Internet is the Internet, no matter how you access it, and the millions of citizens going mobile nowadays for their Internet and the entrepreneurs creating innovative wireless content, applications and services should have the same freedoms and protections as those in the wired context.”71 Thus far, abuse of the flexibility of the rules by mobile operators has been limited, but there are a few key examples of discriminatory behavior. For example, most operators continue to charge extra money and make it difficult to access free tethering applications that allow consumers to connect another device, such as a laptop, to their smartphone to access the Internet. In 2012, AT&T Wireless blocked subscribers’ use of Apple’s FaceTime application and other video calling applications over the provider’s mobile network; only allowing them to be used over Wi-Fi connections.72 After significant public pressure and the threat of a potential investigation by the FCC, AT&T agreed to allow use of the applications over their LTE mobile network.73 Particularly in Jordan, where many residents are increasingly relying on mobile Internet access through USB dongles provided by mobile operators, and nearly 42% of all cellular phones are smart phones,74 open Internet requirements on wireless broadband networks are the first line of defense in promoting a level playing field for new Internet startups as well as access to diverse media and information. Orange, which currently controls a third of Jordan’s mobile market, has pushed the boundaries even in more regulated European nations with respect to discriminating against specific applications. In a number of markets where it is the dominant provider, Orange charged for use of Skype and other VoIP services that utilize the Internet.75 Without regulatory protections to prevent market abuses and protect an open marketplace where consumers can access all content and applications, network providers have a strong incentive to increasingly monetize scarcity on the network. Current spectrum licenses in Jordan are subject to any instructions or decisions issued by the TRC.76 Thus the TRC has the ability to impose conditions on licensees, including open Internet requirements that prevent them from blocking or limiting access to particular Internet applications and services that consumers access over their networks. Relatedly, Jordan should not impose any censorship or filtering requirements on mobile providers. Even in the limited context of blocking access to pornographic websites, which has been discussed in Jordan as well as other MENA countries, it is important to be cautious.77 The use of filtering technology is a slippery slope that can lead to more widespread applications that limit individuals’ access to information or have a chilling effect on telecommunications carriers and other platform providers. By imposing such a requirement, the government will make providers liable for the behavior of users on their network that will inevitably lead providers to overzealously filter and block other applications, content, and services.78 Filtering on the basis of content type is extremely difficult to do without also blocking access to legitimate uses of the network. Moreover, it further empowers Internet providers to abuse their filtering obligations to block legal applications, services, and content that could directly compete with their existing offerings. If the infrastructure is already in place to filter pornographic content and sites, then it can be easily expanded to filter other content and sites that are not favored by a mobile provider. The more providers are required to exert greater control over the flow of information on their networks for other purposes, the more incentive they have to further tighten that control to the detriment of the open Internet.   CONCLUSION Jordan is at a moment of opportunity to take advantage of advances in mobile communications and Internet technologies to support a burgeoning technology sector in the MENA region. Spectrum policies are a critical component of this and will be a key factor in the creation of an environment that encourages innovation and economic development. By reforming its current policies to increase transparency, access, competition, and openness, Jordan can maximize the value of its spectrum resources and ensure that new Jordanian entrepreneurs, creators, and innovators have an opportunity to flourish. The Arab Spring, as well as the introduction of faster Internet, access to social media, community radio, and access to worldwide television stations through satellite, have given Jordan the rationale to accelerate the work on media reform that could ultimately contribute to the country’s hope of a more open and healthy political system and increased economic investment. Media and communications play a vital role in providing information to the public, improving governance, and spurring innovation. The reforms recommended herein may be challenging, but they are essential to truly enabling Jordan to be a full participant in the information revolution. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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• Freelance journalist; lead researcher in Jordan for the Open Society Institute-sponsored Mapping Digital Media Study; journalism instructor, Yarmouk University, Jordan.† Senior Research Fellow; Open Technology Institute, New America Foundation.
• Principal, Democracy Fund; former Director of the Media Policy Initiative, Open Technology Institute, New America Foundation.
• Nick Russo, research associate at the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute, also contributed to this article.
• 1 Marwan Muasher, “How to Achieve Real Reform in the Arab World,” Washington Post, Feb. 2, 2011, accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/01/AR2011020105708.html. Muasher is a former Deputy Prime Minister of Jordan.
• 2 Ilhem Allagui and Johanne Kuebler, “The Arab Spring and the Role of ICTs,” International Journal of Communication 5 (2011): 1436
• 3 Nahed Eltantawy and Julie B. Wiest, “Social Media in the Egyptian Revolution: Reconsidering Resource Mobilization Theory,” International Journal of Communication 5 (2011): 1213.
• 4 Ibid.
• 5 Ben Wagner, “’I Have Understood You’: The Co-Evolution of Expression and Control on the Internet, Television and Mobile Phones during the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia,” International Journal of Communication 5 (2011): 1298.
• 6 Thomas L. Friedman, “Jobs@Arabia.com,” New York Times, May 8, 2012, accessed Dec. 12, 2013, h t t p : / / w w w . n y t i m e s . c o m / 2 0 1 2 / 0 5 / 0 9 / o p i n i o n / fr i e d m a n - j o b s a t a r a b i a d o t c o m . h t m l .
• 7 Sindibad Business, “Investment Report in Internet & Technology Start Ups in the Arab World: 2012 Update,” report (2012), accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://content.argaam.com.s3-external-3.amazonaws.com/c68c550e-97be-40a0-8b06- 0313f2fa77a6.pdf.
• 8 Rana F. Sweis, “Unrest Encourages Start-Up Funding for the Middle East,” New York Times, June 6, 2012, accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/07/world/middleeast/unrest-encourages-start-up-funding-for-the- middle-east.html
• 9 Conversion calculated at CurrencyConverterRate.com, http://www.currencyconverterrate.com/usd/jod.html (conversion rate: 1 USD = 0.708 Jordanian dinar). See also Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “Arab Political Systems: Baseline Information and Reforms – Jordan,” white paper (2008), accessed Dec. 12, 2013, w w w . c a r n e g i e e n d o w m e n t . o r g / fi l e s / J o r d a n _ A P S . d o c .
• 10 FederalCommunicationsCommission(UnitedStates),IntheMatterofAssessmentandCollectionofRegulatoryFeesforFiscal Year 2013 et al., Report and Order, MD Docket No. 13-140 et al., Aug. 12, 2013, accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2013/db0816/FCC-13-110A1.pdf.
• 11 Audio Visual Commission (Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan), “World Broadcasting for Community Radio Praise Amendment to Broadcasting Licenses,” regulatory document, AmmanNet, Aug. 16, 2012, accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://ar.ammannet.net/news/168220#.UEZf-NZlRcT. According to Daoud Kuttab (founder of Radio Balad and AmmanNet), the government cancelled these fees in August 2012.
• 12 Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan), “Jordan Telecommunications Market Development,” report, July 24, 2012, accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://www.trc.gov.jo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=339&Itemid=506&lang=english.
• 13 Committee to Protect Journalists, “Attacks on the Press 2003: Jordan,” report, Mar. 11, 2004, accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://cpj.org/2004/03/attacks-on-the-press-2003-jordan.php.
• 14 See http://ar.ammannet.net/; or http://ar.ammannet.net/news/category/english.
• 15 Personal interview with Daoud Kuttab, April 2012.
• 16 Daoud Kuttab, “Jordan’s Lack of Appreciation of Public Service Broadcasting,” Menassat, Sept. 23, 2009, accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://www.menassat.com/?q=en/news-articles/7216-jordans-lack-appreciation-public-service- broadcasting.
• 17 Freedom House, “Jordan: Freedom of the Press 2010,” report (2010), accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2010/jordan
• 18 Al-Balad Radio, “About Us,” accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://en.ammannet.net/?page_id=111.
• 19 Thomas F. Brady, “Press Law Shuts Jordan’s Papers; 3 Reorganized Publications Due to Appear Tomorrow,” New York Times, March 26, 1967.
• 20 Department of State (United States), Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, “Jordan: 2004,” report, Feb. 28, 2005, accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41724.htm.
• 21 Associated Press, “Jordanian Cancels Most Martial Law Rules,” New York Times, July 8, 1991, accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/08/world/jordanian-cancels-most-martial-law-rules.html.
• 22 Fairouz Abu-Ghazaleh, “Senate Passes Press and Publication Law,” Jordan Times, Aug. 18, 1998.
• 23 Center for Defending Freedom of Journalists, “Impunity: Media Freedom Status in Jordan, 2011,” report (2011), accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://www.cdfj.org/look/PDFs/Media%20Freedom%20Status%20in%20Jordan%202011- EN.pdf.
• 24 Center for Defending Freedom for Journalists, “On the Edge: Media Freedom Status in Jordan, 2010,” report (2010), accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://www.cdfj.org/look/PDFs/Media%20Freedom%20Status%20in%20Jordan%202010- EN.pdf.
• 25 Al Quds Center for Political Studies, “Status of Press Freedom, 2011,” report (2011), accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://www.alqudscenter.org/uploads/Alquds_Center_Study3.pdf, 27.
• 26 Center for Defending Freedom of Journalists, “Impunity: Media Freedom Status in Jordan, 2011.”
• 27 Committee to Protect Journalists, “CPJ Calls on Jordan to Prevent Attacks on Journalists,” report, July 18, 2011, accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://www.cpj.org/2011/07/cpj-calls-on-jordan-to-prevent-attacks-on-journali.php.
• 28 Ibid.
• 29 Reporters Without Borders, “Dismay After Government Approves Repressive Media Bill,” Aug. 30, 2012, accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://en.rsf.org/jordan-dismay-after-government-approves-30-08-2012,43300.html.
• 30 Eva Galperin, “Jordanians Protest Internet Censorship Law with SOPA-Style Blackout,” Electronic Frontier Foundation, Aug. 29, 2012, accessed Dec. 12, 2013, https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/08/jordanians-protest- internet-censorship-law-sopa-style-blackout.
• 31 “Access to Jordan News Websites Blocked: Press & Publications Crackdown Launched,” Al Bawaba, June 2, 2013, accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://www.albawaba.com/news/jordan-websites-ban-496269.
• 32 Figures can be found at Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Department of Statistics, http://www.dos.gov.jo/dos_home_e/main/index.htm.
• 33 Mohammad Ghazal, “Internet Freedom Activists See Bad Precedent in Drive to Censor Porn Sites,” Jordan Times, May 1, 2012, accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://jordantimes.com/Internet+freedom+activists+see+bad+precedent+in+drive+to+censor+porn+sites-47555.
• 34 Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan), Statement of Government Policy 2007 on the Information and Communications Technology and Postal Sectors, regulatory document (2007), accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://www.moict.gov.jo/enus/policiesandstrategies/statementofgovernmentpolicy2007.aspx.
• 35 Oxford Business Group, The Report: Jordan 2009 (London: Oxford Business Group, 2009), 93-96.
• 36 Personal interview with Yara Abdel Samad, 2012. Samad is Policies and Strategies Director at the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology.
• 37 “XPress Launches Radio Trunking and Mobile Telephony Services in Jordan,” Al Bawaba, June 9, 2004, accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://www.albawaba.com/business/xpress-launches-radio-trunking-and-mobile-telephony-services-jordan. The service offers subscribers the ability to instantly communicate with a single individual (one-to-one) or with a group (one-to-many) through the push of a button – a sort of integrated, digital “walkie-talkie.”
• 38 Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan), “A Chronology of the Telecom Sector Development 1921-2008,” accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://www.trc.gov.jo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=337&itemid=507&lang=english.
• 39 Oxford Business Group, 95-96.
• 40 “Umniah Prepares for 3G Launch,” TradeArabia, April 25, 2012, accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://www .tradearabia.net/news/IT_216541.html.
• 41 Mohammad Ghazal, “Orange Preparing to Provide 4G Services After 3 Years,” Jordan Times, Mar. 14, 2012, accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://jordantimes.com/orange-preparing-to-provide-4g-services-after-3-years.
• 42 Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan), “A Chronology of the Telecom Sector Development 1921-2008.”
• 43 Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan), Telecommunications Law No. (13) of 1995, Official Gazette No. 4072, Jan. 10, 1995, accessed Dec. 12, 2013,h t t p : / / w w w . t r c . g o v . j o / i m a g e s / s t o r i e s / p d f / t e l e c o m u n i c a t i o n % 2 0 l a w . p d f? l a n g = e n g l i s h .
• 44 Edward D. Cavanaugh, “De-Regulation of the Air Waves: Is Antitrust Enough?” Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development 17, no. 1 (2003): 68.
• 45 Barbara van Schewick, “Network Neutrality and Quality of Service: What a Non-Discrimination Rule Should Look Like,” white paper, Center for Internet and Society, June 11, 2012, accessed Dec. 12, 2013, h t t p : / / c y b e r l a w . s t a n fo r d . e d u / d o w n l o a d s / 2 0 1 2 0 6 1 1 - N e t w o r k N e u t r a l i t y . p d f.
• 46 Benjamin Lennett, Tom Glaisyer, and Sascha Meinrath, “Public Media Policy, Spectrum Policy, and Rethinking Public Interest Obligations for the 21st Century,” policy paper, New America Foundation, June 21, 2012, accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://oti.newamerica.net/sites/newamerica.net/files/policydocs/PublicMedia_Spectrum_Paper_1.pdf.
• 47 Ibid.
• 48 Ibid.
• 49 Ibid.
• 50 Benton Foundation, “Citizen’s Guide to the Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters,” report (2005), accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://benton.org/sites/benton.org/files/citizensguide.pdf, 4.
• 51 Quoted in Mark Lloyd, “Forget the Fairness Doctrine,” Center for American Progress, July 24, 2007, accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/media/news/2007/07/24/3348/forget-the-fairness-doctrine/. See also Henry Geller, “Geller to FCC: Scrap the Rules, Try a Spectrum Fee,” Current.org, Oct. 30, 2000, accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://current.org/wp-content/themes/current/archive-site/why/why0020geller.shtml.
• 52 Henry Geller and Tim Watts, “The Five Percent Solution: A Spectrum Fee to Replace the ‘Public Interest Obligations’ of Broadcasters,” Spectrum Series Working Paper #3, New America Foundation, May 2002, accessed Dec. 12, 2013, http://www.newamerica.net/files/archive/Pub_File_844_1.pdf, 12.
• 53 Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan), Frequency Use and Planning Policy, Issued Pursuant to Board of Commissioners Decision No. 4-19\2008, Mar. 9, 2008, accessed Dec. 13, 2013,http://www .trc.gov .jo/images/stories/pdf/Frequency_use_and_planning_policy.pdf?lang=english.
• 54 Ellen P. Goodman, “Spectrum Auctions and the Public Interest,” Journal of Telecommunications and High Technology Law 7 (2009): 354.
• 55 Stacy Higginbotham, “Verizon’s Spectrum Deal with Cable Is the End of Broadband Competition,” GigaOM, Dec. 2, 2011, accessed Dec. 13, 2013, http://gigaom.com/broadband/verizons-spectrum-deal-with-cable-is-the-end-of- broadband-competition/.
• 56 Sinead Carew, “Wireless Carriers Eye Solutions to Spectrum Crunch,” Reuters, May 11, 2012, accessed Dec. 13, 2013, http://www .reuters.com/article/2012/05/11/us-wireless-smallcells-idUSBRE84A12G20120511.
• 57 Michael Calabrese and Benjamin Lennett, “Mobile Data Demand and the Need for Increased Spectrum Access,” policy paper, New America Foundation, Oct. 2009, accessed Dec. 13, 2013, http://www .newamerica.net/files/CalabreseLennett_MobileDataDemand.pdf.
• 58 Jon M. Peha, “Spectrum Management Policy Options,” IEEE Communication Surveys 1, no. 1 (2008): 6.
• 59 Ibid.
• 60 Laura Forlano, Alison Powell, Gwen Shaffer, and Benjamin Lennett, “From the Digital Divide to Digital Excellence: Global Best Practices to Aid Development of Municipal and Community Wireless Networks in the United States,” policy paper, New America Foundation (2011), accessed Dec. 13, 2013,h t t p : / / w w w . n e w a m e r i c a . n e t / s i t e s / n e w a m e r i c a . n e t / fi l e s / p o l i c y d o c s / N A F % 2 0 M u n i c i p a l % 2 0 a n d % 2 0 C o m m u n i t y % 2 0 W ireless%20Report.pdf.
• 61 Sascha Meinrath and Victor Pickard, “The Rise of the Intranet Era: Media, Research and Policy in the Age of Communications Revolution,” white paper, New America Foundation, Feb. 20, 2009, accessed Dec. 13, 2013, http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/rise_intranet_era.
• 62 Forlano, Powell, Shaffer, and Lennett, 41.
• 63 Mark McHenry, “Dupont Circle Spectrum Utilization During Peak Hours,” white paper, New America Foundation and The Shared Spectrum Company (2003), accessed Dec. 13, 2013, http://www.newamerica.net/files/archive/Doc_File_183_1.pdf. Some analysts suggest that at any given time the majority of the current spectrum could be technically considered a “white space.”
• 64 Federal Communications Commission (United States), In the Matter of Unlicensed Operation in the TV Broadcast bands et al., ET Docket No. 04-186 et al., Second Report and Order and Memorandum Report and Order, Nov. 14, 2008, accessed Dec. 13, 2013, http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-08-260A1.pdf.
• 65 Steven K. Jones and Thomas W. Phillips, “Initial Evaluation of the Performance of Prototype TV-Band White Spaces Devices,” OET Report FCC/OET 07-TR-1006, Federal Communications Commission, July 31, 2007, accessed Dec. 13, 2013, http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-275666A1.pdf.
• 66 Victor W. Pickard and Sascha D. Meinrath, “Revitalizing the Public Airwaves: Opportunistic Unlicensed Reuse of Government Spectrum,” International Journal of Communication 3 (2009): 1052-1084.
• 67 Al Tamimi & Company, “The Introduction of 3G in Jordan,” Nov. 2008, accessed Dec. 13, 2013, http://archive.newsweaver.com/altamimi/newsweaver.ie/altamimi/e_article001290090.html.
• 69 Federal Communications Commission (United States), “The Open Internet,” accessed Dec. 13, 2013, h t t p : / / w w w . fc c . g o v / g u i d e s / o p e n - i n t e r n e t .
• 70 Federal Communications Commission (United States), In the Matter of Preserving the Open Internet, Report and Order, GN Docket No. 09-191, Dec. 23, 2010, accessed Dec. 13, 2013, http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC- 10-201A1_Rcd.pdf, 55.
• 71 Ibid., 142.
• 72 Carrie Mihalcik, “AT&T to Open Mobile Video Chat for All Customers,” CNET, May 20, 2013, accessed Dec. 13, 2013, http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57585381-94/at-t-to-open-mobile-video-chat-for-all-customers/.
• 73 Steven Musil, “AT&T Reportedly Begins Wide Cellular Support for FaceTime,” CNET, June 17, 2013, accessed Dec. 13, 2013, http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57589748-94/at-t-reportedly-begins-wide-cellular-support-for-facetime/. 74 Jawad Abbassi, “Insights into Arab Consumers Broadcast and Online Consumption Habits,” presentation at the Joint ITU-AICTO Workshop on Interoperability of IPTV in the Arab Region, Sept. 20-21, 2011, accessed Dec. 13, 2013, http://www .itu.int/dms_pub/itu-t/oth/06/5B/T065B0000060043PDFE.pdf.
• 75 Russell Shaw, “Vodafone and Orange are Blocking Skype and Similar Services,” ZDNet, Apr. 25, 2007, accessed Dec. 13, 2013, http://www.zdnet.com/blog/ip-telephony/vodafone-and-orange-are-blocking-skype-and-similar- services/1564; Andy Weir, “Microsoft Pushing Operators to Open up Skype Access in UK,” Neowin.net, Nov. 302011, accessed Dec. 13, 2013, http://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-pushing-operators-to-open-up-skype-access-in- uk.
• 76 Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan), Frequency Use and Planning Policy.
• 77 Mohammad Ghazal, “Ministry Issues Free Anti-Porn Software in Response to Filtering Demands,” Jordan Times, July 29, 2012, accessed Dec. 13, 2013, http://jordantimes.com/ministry-issues-free-anti-porn-software-in-response-to- censorship-demands.
• 78 Bobbie Johnson, “Crazy: Orange Censors All Blogs, Not Just GigaOM,” GigaOM, June 11, 2012, accessed Dec. 13, 2013, http://gigaom.com/europe/orange-censors-all-blogs/.

Turkish Policy Quarterly: Digitization in Jordan

By Rana F. Sweis and Dina Baslan The Jordanian government has made pledges in the past to implement political, economic, and media reforms. Although some of these reforms have taken a step backwards, digitization and enhanced access to information and news has contributed to political and social activism in society. Jordanians have created communities and contributed to “digital and social activism,” making an impact through active public participation. Due to Jordan’s geographical location and weak economy, however, the country will remain vulnerable to external shocks and regional unrest. Download PDF...

Russia’s Playbook for Middle East Energy Security

Nuclear energy diplomacy is a game of relationships. This is especially true in the Middle East, where governments face water scarcity, political and economic challenges but increasingly underreported energy scarcity. Civil nuclear offers Middle East governments an avenue to solving energy insecurity through new geopolitical partnerships that will change the political dynamics of the region for decades to come....

HuffPost Blog: Women After the Arab Spring

As Arabs attempt to find their voice and in some cases their political identity, social conservatism seems to be on the rise. Mothers, daughters, and sisters in more rural areas are being punished for the way they dress and for their livelihoods. But in countries with authoritarian leaders -- Libya, Tunisia, Egypt -- who ruled and punished their people for decades, unlocking patriarchy and oppression may take years of debate and social democracy -- not only political democracy. Read more ...

Digital Media Empower Arab Youth

Revolutions in the Middle East have been powered by young people using new technology. Young people, who make up 30 percent of the region’s population, have played a dominant role in protests and political upheaval by documenting events with cell phones, the Internet and social media... Read full article...

Life on the Streets

Even though children under sixteen are prohibited from working, some estimates put the number of children working in Jordan at 250,000. A deteriorating economic situation, apathy and no clear, operative government strategy is forcing more and more children onto the street as vendors and beggars.View PDF...

Hunger Strike

On a warm summer morning in East Amman, a private school is turned into a makeshift food distribution centre. Brown boxes are placed on top of each other on long rectangular tables. Masoud, who fled Iraq in 2006, stood in line with dozens of other Iraqis living in Jordan. He gazes far off into the distance as others empty their boxes full of wheat, rice, sugar, milk powder and other food items, then placing them in large white plastic bags. Sabri, a short, gray haired, elderly man shakes his head in disbelief. “It’s my first time ever that I have been forced to resort to food aid,” he explains. “The price of food in Amman is becoming so expensive and many Iraqis living in East Amman and outside Amman are developing health problems because they don’t have money to buy fruits and vegetables as well as meat.” In a middle class neighborhood in Amman, Amer Swenda, a Jordanian taxi driver, is looking for a more stable monthly salary. He can no longer pay 30 Dinars of petrol per day. “My children need milk, and every few days I go to buy milk and I find the price has been changed dramatically,” he explains. “Today I can buy milk and rice but what about tomorrow?” Meat and chicken prices in Jordan have risen 30 percent in less than a year. The price of eggs and milk nearly doubled. Fruits and vegetables have tripled. Jordan seems to be heading towards progress in terms of infrastructure development and privatization but the increase in food prices, leading to additional cases of malnutrition in the kingdom, may pose many challenges ahead. It is not a Jordanian phenomenon alone. On July 3, 2008, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) announced the number of hungry people increased by about 50 million in 2007 as a direct result of high food prices. The World Bank estimates 33 countries face social unrest because of the rise in food and energy prices. The largest problems of malnutrition are in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. In Jordan, a recent published survey by the Jordan Population and Family Heath (JPFHS) reveals a rise in malnutrition among Jordanian children. “Malnutrition is a consequence and eventuality,” explains Mohammad Ismail, Senior Program and Logistics Assistant at the World Food Program (WFP) in Amman. “Obviously that means there is a change in the household food consumption behavior including in quality and quantity of food.” Meanwhile, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) provides food packages to some 20,000 Iraqis a month in Jordan, but the refugee agency was forced to cut the size of the package due to the rising prices. In effect, it has decreased the nutritional value, which contained 1,300 calories per person per day to 1100 kilocalories per day. “In some meetings that I attended, vulnerable Iraqis were wrapping pastries and sandwiches for their families and taking coffee sachets because they can’t afford it anymore and they don’t have an income,” explains Jason Erb, Save the Children, Deputy Country Director for Emergency Programs in Amman. “They are ashamed about taking the food home for their families and they did not do that in the past as much but I see it’s increasing,” he says. In addition, twenty five percent of UNHCR beneficiaries are vulnerable Jordanians. “Being that it is a supplementary package, they cannot depend on what we distribute as the main source of food,” says Dana Bajjali, UNHCR Mass Information Assistant. Mounira Mohammad, works at a Salon in Amman. She recently asked a truck driver traveling from Saudi Arabia to Jordan to bring her children powdered milk. “The milk is cheaper there and we are lucky that we are able to buy it from the trucker at a cheaper price,” she says.   On her day off, Mounira usually visits her neighbors who told her recently they stopped buying milk altogether. “One day I visited my neighbor and she was giving her two-year old a cup of tea instead of milk because it’s cheaper,” she explains. “The children no longer know what milk tastes like.” According to a survey conducted in 2004 by the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation then published in the local newspapers last year, the number of poverty pockets in Jordan increased to 42 areas, while in 2004, only 20 areas were categorized officially as poverty pockets. One of the highlights recorded in the survey suggests families in poverty do not use different types of nutrients, but rather consume more quantities of tea and bread for long periods and use these items as main sources of food. As a result, this causes imbalances in the nutrient values and calorie intake. However, learning how to use different types of food despite the limited income may increase the value of nutrition. “We don’t really need to have meat, chicken or fish everyday to get optimum nutrition,” explains Amal Nasser, a Diet, Nutrition Consultant and Founder of ANANA Wellness centre in Amman. “We need to educate people through campaigns and give them simple, straight forward messages on how to combine the different foods.” With certain combinations and on a fixed budget various sectors in society would able to educate people how to prepare certain foods, to ensure their family receives the maximum benefits, nutrients and calories they need, says Nasser. “It’s not about having a kilogram of meat everyday that you end up being healthy.” Like in many natural and man-made disasters, it is usually children who are hit the hardest. Worldwide, malnutrition plays a role in the death of 6 million children a year—which equals the entire population of Jordan. Due to the rise in food prices and drought, more than 4 million people in Ethiopia are in need of emergency food assistance and widespread famine may be imminent, reported Concerned Worldwide, an international humanitarian relief and development organization. In Iraq more then a quarter of the country’s children are malnourished. At least 4 million Iraqis depend on food assistance, according to an Oxfam report. “When we used to live in Iraq before the war, we never worried about food or water because the government provided it free of charge but now Iraqis living there are starving,” says Sabri Ilia who owned a factory in Iraq but is now unemployed and living with his married children in Amman The 2007 JPFHS survey measured malnutrition according to international standards–children’s height for age and weight for age. The survey indicates that malnutrition among children under the age of five rose by 2-6 percent from 2002. However, there are conflicting reports. According to JPFHS survey, 12 per cent of children were classified as stunted in 2007 (as opposed to 14 per cent according to the WHO Child Growth standards), compared with nine percent in 2002. A joint WFP and JAAH survey is being conducted regarding malnutrition in poverty pockets already identified by the government to assess the threat of food security due to the rise in food prices. “Once the survey comes out, we will be able to assess accurately the extent and severity of malnutrition due to the rise in food prices in poverty pockets households,” says Ismail. Moreover, the JPFHS survey indicates factors such as the quality of mother-child care and infancy feeding patterns also play an important role. Patterns of breastfeeding have changed in the past five years and responsible to a certain extent to the deterioration in children’s nutritional status. WFP reports exemplify how malnutrition in early childhood undermines children’s physical and cognitive abilities, therefore hindering their performance in school. If girls are malnourished they give birth to underweight babies, and the cycle continues into the next generation. The report also listed the five most critical threats to the lives of children under age five in developing countries: newborn disorders, malnutrition, pneumonia, diarrhea and measles. Effective measures to fight these killers is not expensive. Yet millions of children still die each year because they are not being reached. “We don’t want poor Jordanians to get to a point where they become dependent on food aid, but we want to continue with the notion of food-for-work’, explains Sawsan Al Fayez of JAAH. “Food-for-work means, we give needy family food packages but at the same time, we give them an income generating project until we assess and know that they have become independent.” However, Al Fayez says she worries that cases of malnutrition are increasing. “In my line of work, I see there is an increase in both malnutrition and even hunger in Jordan that is not being recorded,” she adds. Meanwhile, Swenda, the Jordanian taxi driver, continues to worry about his children’s future. “Sometimes I drive around and see poor children inside the big rubbish bins and think my family is lucky but then I wonder about the future of our people.” Risks to Food Security in Jordan Source: WFP Lack of job opportunities and low income Decline in economic indicators Low and erratic annual precipitation Agricultural land degradation Self insufficiency in food products, especially cereals Water scarcity, with Jordan ranking among the 10 most water-deficit countries Food Production: Cereals, vegetables, fruit, poultry and eggs. Dependent on imports for a substantial part of the food supply....

Jordanians Weigh on Obama's Candidacy

Here’s a feature I wrote regading Jordanian opinion and Obama.  It was featured in 7iber.com 7iberDotCom — On a bustling street in downtown Amman, Farah Al Sayyad, 24, stares at a magazine showing American democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama walking up a flight of stairs while gazing at the sky. “For me it’s not about if he will be good or great,” she says. “It’s about not doing something negative to us, like waging another war in the region.” Suddenly her friend Eman Buraile, 23, turns around. “Wake up, Farah!” she interrupts. “I don’t really know who Obama is, but they are all the same.” Some middle-class Jordanians say they do not know Obama well enough to judge his character or intentions. Yet, when they watch television or read translated texts of his speeches, they have no problem envisioning him in a character role. Read the rest of this article…...

Which Politics for Arab Poetry

The key to understanding the hearts and minds of Arabs is through shiir, or poetry, their greatest art. The Iraq war and its aftermath fueled mixed emotions in the Arab world ­ resignation, reflection, rage ­that are now being articulated in verse. “No people in the world manifest such enthusiastic admiration for literary expression and are so moved by the word, spoken or written, as the Arabs,” wrote historian Philip Hitti in his History of the Arabs. Poetic expression has been admired and exalted by caliphs, clerics and revolutionaries and has always been at the heart of Arab politics. Al-Mutanabbi, the greatest classical poet, was also a political rebel: “The horses, the nights and the desert know me/As well as the sword, the spear, the pen and the paper,” he wrote. He was slain near Baghdad in 965. Throughout decades of conflict and stagnation, Arab poets have retained their influence. Indeed, today in the Arab world more poetry is published than prose. “Poetry is the art and beauty of our language,” says Othman Hassan, the Jordanian author of Kibbrayaa al-Sifa (Description of Pride), a recent collection of verse. Moreover, since most Arab poetry is written in classical Arabic and understood by all literate Arabs, it transcends dialects and regionalisms. “Say an Iraqi writes a classical poem. You would never recognize that he’s an Iraqi or Moroccan or Egyptian,” says Saleh Niazi, an Iraqi poet. What unites all, he adds, are “common mental images.” Mohammed al-Thaher, cultural editor of the second-largest daily in Jordan, Ad-Dustour, calls the Iraq war a “shock” that will stir Arab emotions. But transforming these feelings into verse will take some time, he predicts. “Poetry always comes after an event; we may see a long period of time pass before we can realize what happened, especially in the case of Iraq.” But the hunger for poetry to describe the war can be felt already. Khalil al-Sawahri, a columnist for Ad-Dustour, has written an article entitled Poetry and War, in which he challenges the Arab literary community to respond quickly to the Iraq conflict: “What are Arab poets doing to make their voices heard?” Despite this call, some are sidestepping politics, for example Iraqi singer Kazim al-Saher, who came to music through poetry. He argues: “Poetry is the language that speaks our feelings … It’s the kingdom we enter whenever we feel desperate.” Yet others will read what they want into specific poetry or songs. At a recent concert in Amman, for example, young men carried a banner that read, “Kazim is the voice of all Arabs.” Saher’s best-received song that night was ‘Baghdad, Don’t Grieve’, a generalized lament for his home city, where he expressed the hope that Iraq would prosper again. But while Saher’s lyrics point away from political specifics, other poets speak directly about the turmoil in their land ­ and in their souls. Their poetry describes the sound of tanks, soldiers searching homes, Arab hands tied with nylon cords and children in raggedy clothes. Indeed, even the most romantic Arabs have turned the political turmoil in the Middle East into verse. The late Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani, perhaps the most influential of modern Arab poets and an early defender of women’s rights, wrote, after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war: “Ah my country! You have transformed me/From a poet of love and yearning/To a poet writing with a knife.” His fellow Syrian, Adonis, who now lives in France, published a poem last April, after US forces entered Iraq, entitled ‘Homage to Baghdad’. He began by urging his readers to “Listen to the words of the invaders: ‘With the blessing of Heaven/We are leading a preventive war/We will bring the water of life/From the rivers Hudson and Thames/And make it flow into the Tigris and Euphrates.’” Then he described events as they happened: “A war against water and trees/Against birds and the faces of children/The fire of cluster bombs spurts from their hands.” He asked, in conclusion: “Are we to believe, oh invaders, that an invasion can bring prophetic missiles? That civilization is only born in nuclear waste?” These and similar passages reflect a wider phenomenon of how Arabs feel adrift. Their political leaders have failed, and their poets have found no consistent or effective voice. Meanwhile, America, the new hegemon in the Middle East, is seen as a combination of power, wealth and temptation, a mix of goodwill and bad faith. No American seems able to speak persuasively, let alone poetically, to the Arab soul. And so, today, those who are mostly hostile to American influence are reciting the battle of poetry. However, the last words have yet to be written, says Mohammed Tommaleh, a novelist and social columnist for Jordan’s Arab al-Yawm newspaper: “Baghdad fell, Saddam fell, but poetry will continue to be written”...

Ending it All: Suicide in Jordan

Published in Living Well Magazine February 2009 AMMAN-Mohammad Abdul-Nabi, 23, was found hung in his home by his 14-year-old brother. The young farmer was rushed to the hospital but was pronounced dead upon arrival. He decided to end his life because of a second failed marriage, explain his relatives. His story, like others similar to it, is shrouded in mystery and recorded only in snippets. And just like their short interrupted lives, information regarding suicide victims’ acts and their aftermath is scarce in Jordan. Like so many families who prefer to deny or forget the past, a person who knows a person tells a story of pain. “When it comes to suicide cases in Jordan, we only get a glimpse, like a car whooshing by,” says Fayez Al-Fayez, Editor in Chief of Arabiya magazine and a popular social columnist. “We end up never knowing the reasons, we end up never knowing the whole story and no one wants to talk about it either.” Every year, one million people worldwide die by suicide, according to World Health Organization (WHO) statistics. Moreover, in the past 45 years suicide rates increased by 60 percent and is now among the three leading causes of death among those aged 15-44 years. These figures do not include attempted suicide, which are up to 20 times more frequent than suicide. WHO statistics reveal that suicide in Jordan and in the region remain low, but in-depth research remains inadequate. “Statistically suicide is not considered an epidemic problem in Jordan,” explains Hani Jahshan, a Forensic Pathologist. There are 35 to 40 cases of suicide in Jordan every year, and the age range is between 20-25, according to the National Center for Forensic Medicine. However, attempted suicide cases are not recorded, says Jahshan. “Research is lacking in this field, especially in terms of attempted suicide.” Emergency services in hospitals are not keeping records of suicide attempts, adds Jahshan. Sultan, 39, stole a knife from a shop in Amman and stabbed himself in the stomach. Witnesses say the man was “desperate”. He did not die. He was taken to hospital where reports suggest he is in ‘critical’ condition. Just a few hours before he stabbed himself, family members saved Sultan. They found him wearing a noose around his neck. Suicide is ultimately an individual and often a private act. Biological, genetic, psychological, social and cultural factors may impact the risk of suicide in an individual. Domestic violence, for example, can trigger a suicide attempt. “Psychological abuse can take on different forms including humiliation, threats of divorce, blackmailing and physical abuse,” explains Walid Sarhan, a psychiatrist. “The psychological consequences will include anxiety, frustration, low self-esteem and suicidal attempts.” Other risk factors can include serious mental illness, alcohol and drug abuse, childhood abuse, loss of a loved one and unemployment. “There is a lack of awareness about suicide,” admits Mohammad Khateeb, Police Security Department Spokesperson. “The truth is we still live in a tribal and conservative society that would rather not speak of suicide, which is forbidden in religion and brings shame to the family.” Another short news piece on suicide was published in Ammonews, a popular electronic news website. A 20-year-old woman jumped from the top of the fifth circle tunnel, according to traffic police and witnesses. The woman whose ‘love affair’ failed recently, prompted her to attempt suicide, reports suggest. She was still alive when she was rushed to hospital and an investigation took place. Individual cases of suicide in Jordan that were published in the media—overwhelmingly in electronic media–illustrate that shame, economic hardship, examination failure, unrequited love, family’s objection to a marriage and other family disputes were the greatest risk factors. One of the only in-depth documents that shed light on suicide in Jordan is a 2001 dissertation entitled, A Sociological View of Suicide in Jordan written by Ismeel Aqili, a former graduate student at the University of Jordan. Based on cases he examined from 1982-1999, his study reveals more males than females commit suicide but more females attempt suicide. University graduates between the ages of 18 to 37 were more likely to commit suicide in Jordan. Most of the individuals who committed suicide in this age range were unemployed. Police were able to convince a 17-year-old from jumping off a telecommunication building in Zarqa, reported Ammon. The young man found out he failed the Tawjahi exam. Witnesses and friends said the young man was afraid he would be punished severely by his family for failing the exam. “At the end of the day, I worry about our youth because I don’t believe they want to commit suicide. It is often a cry for help” says Haifa Abu Ghazaleh, Senator and Secretary General of the National Council for Family Affairs. “If they fail the Tawjahi [high school exam] for example, they may fear the family’s reaction.” People at risk of suicide can be treated. Oftentimes, it is due to the inability to cope as a result of an event or series of events that the person finds overwhelmingly traumatic or distressing. Psychotherapy and continued contact with a health provider can decrease the risk of suicide. Programs that address risk and protective measures are effective. Moreover, suicide has a profound effect on family, friends, and those associated with the victim. “I reported on a story of a mentally ill woman whose husband eventually divorced her,” explains Al-Fayez. One day her parents and daughter found her on the roof of their house, says Al-Fayez. She poured gasoline on herself very calmly and she lit herself on fire. She didn’t die. The victim was rushed to the hospital and died two days later. “What I saw is the effect it had on the family, the devastation,” he adds. “The siblings and her daughter were devastated.” While those who are under the age of 18 and attempt suicide have access to rehabilitation programs from the Family Protection Department, those who are over 18 have no institutional support, according to Khateeb. In Jordanian society, there is a great deal of social and religious stigma surrounding mental illness. Islam views suicide as a sin. The prohibition of suicide has also been recorded: “He who commits suicide by throttling shall keep on throttling himself in the Hell-fire, and he who commits suicide by stabbing himself, he shall keep stabbing himself in the Hell-fire.” In the sixth century, suicide became a Christian religious sin and secular crime. In 533, those who committed suicide while accused of a crime were denied a Christian burial. Talking about feelings surrounding suicide promotes understanding and can greatly reduce the immediate distress of a suicidal person. “Is suicide a really big problem in Jordan? Are the numbers alarming? The answer is no,” says Khateeb, “However, I understand the concern among individuals and members of society at large regarding individuals who attempt suicide, where can they turn to for help?” People who feel suicidal may fear expressing themselves, and may be reluctant to reach out for help. “The stigma of psychiatric illnesses is still very prevalent,” explains Sarhan. “A women, for example, who dares to consult with a psychiatrist could face the threat of divorce and deprivation from her children, although it is not legal, but women believe that.” People often deal with stressful or traumatic events and experiences reasonably well, but sometimes an accumulation of such events, over an extended period, can push normal coping strategies to the limit.  Jahshan, like many others working with victims of violence and abuse, says that Jordan continues to lack skilled professionals in this field. “Those who provide counseling to victims of violence and abuse should consider cases of attempted suicide and provide them services as well,” says Abu Ghazaleh. “At the end of the day everyone has a role to play including all sectors of civil society.” Jordan could go a long way by reducing the suicide rate by discussing ways to decrease suicidal tendencies. Providing protection programs is important. Shedding light on the issue can even prevent suicide cases. “Protection programs begin in our schools. There needs to be awareness campaigns, group therapy and individual counseling in schools,” says Abu Ghazaleh. “I believe there should be a more clear strategy on how to tackle this issue from different angles and address it in schools,” explains Abu Ghazaleh. When forensic experts, doctors and members of various organizations wanted to begin combating family violence in Jordan, they turned to the media. In 2004, two forensic doctors presented statistics showing a dramatic increase in the number of abused children. “If this issue is not covered enough by the media, the children will not know there are people who are here to help them, and places they can turn to for help,” said Rabab al Qubaj, a specialist in the Jordan River Foundation. During that time, journalists present at the workshop asked members of organizations and others to play a role in giving them easier access to information. The journalists also pointed out hidden fears, about raising such taboo and sensitive issues, fearing repercussions. Today, electronic media news websites such as Ammon (www.ammonnews.net) and Saraya (www.sarayanews.com) have taken a lead in shedding light on suicide in Jordan. Although suicide news segments in both news agencies are not covered in-depth, they do report individual cases. Ammon publishes statistics on the number of suicide cases per year in Jordan. They examine the reasons for each case, although there is little follow-up on the cases. Print and broadcast media in Jordan lags behind in both reporting and shedding light on suicide in Jordan. “Electronic media in Jordan is lifting the lid on many issues like suicide, and domestic violence,” explains Rana Sabbagh, a journalist and media expert. In February 2004, the first ever conference on child abuse in the Middle East took place in Amman. Representatives from across the world, local government and NGO’s took part. Dozens of media outlets from the Arab world were present. During the conference Jahshan attributed the increase in the number of reported child abuse cases in Jordan to the increased coverage of the issue in the local press. This successful and ongoing campaign to combat child abuse in Jordan can also be implemented to debunk misconceptions and reduce suicide rates in Jordan. “The more we deny as a society that there are cases of suicide in Jordan, the more we’ll have to look within and say, how could we not help these individuals from killing themselves?” says Al-Fayez. “That is shameful.” Fact Box

Expose': Prison Reform in Jordan. Is it Possible?

By Rana F. Sweis When Um Dia’a speaks, her eyes squint and her voice is barely audible. Upon recalling the story that landed her in Jordan’s Juweideh Correctional and Rehabilitation Center, she regurgitates it quickly. “It is a story of theft that turned deadly,” she announces. “Poverty and debt pushed my brother and I to steal from a farm, but things went wrong and my brother killed a man.” Um Dia’a and her brother, also in prison, confessed to murdering a farm owner in Madaba. Today, Um Dia’a spends her days in confinement – knitting, attending lectures, learning to bake pastries, and watching television. Though their first aim is to take away freedoms enjoyed within society, prisons are looking to new ways of development. Juweideh prison for women underwent renovation in 2000 to see it turn into a correctional and rehabilitation center (CRC) aimed at reforming character through exercise, work, training, and social care. “Change and reform continue to take place because we feel there is a need for it,” says Khaled AlMajali, director of CRC Training and Development. “We are not apart from the Public Security Directorate, but at the same time we are not only focusing on law enforcement, but rather on training individuals whose mentality is more aligned with rehabilitating.” The white stone building of Juweideh’s CRC for women looks more like a two-story apartment building with a balcony and small rectangular-shaped windows. Guards stand inside and outside a large black gate. Cellular phones are not permitted. The parking lot is empty with only an ambulance on standby, while from a distance, a guard leaning on his rifle can be seen from the high-rise compound of Juweideh prison for men, which hosts almost 1,300 persons. Accommodating up to 450 inmates, the CRC for women  boasts 14 rooms, 450 beds, and 300 security officers. At present, the total number of prisoners held in Jordan is 7,834, of which 235 are women, this according to a May 7, 2009 daily report distributed by the Administration of the CRC. “My main concern is to provide the best possible services to the women here and make sure they are safe,” explains Fatima Al Badarein, director of Juweideh CRC for women. “We think the reform that is taking place is a good step forward but much more needs to be done,” says Nisreen Zerikat, an advocate at the National Center for Human Rights (NCHR) in Jordan. “Yes, there are activities that are being provided like baking and sewing, but we need to really focus on the rehabilitation process in the sense of psychological care, and to help individuals integrate back into society once they are out.” Prison is a part of any society and the way prisoners do time may also affect their lives after incarceration. “The truth is, nothing compensates for freedom, but while they are here we try to offer good services and protection,” says Al Badarein. Finding a way to integrate back into society after being in a CRC or prison facility remains an obstacle for these men and women in Jordan, especially since some even face internment by their own families and society at large. “The perception of prisoners among Jordanians is they are deviant, criminals, and dangerous,” says Musa Sheitwi, a sociologist and director of the Jordan Center for Social Research. “It is even more so for women, and the stigma against them is greater,” he adds. “The perception is that she has done wrong morally and accepting her in society is very difficult.” For many institutions and ministries, including the Ministry of Social Development (MoSD) who work on rehabilitation and reintegration into society, it remains a new and challenging concept. It is usually difficult for prisoners to become reacquainted with freedom, and at least a quarter of those who are released will commit an act that will lead them back to the prison or center. “Around 25 to 30 percent of those who are released from prison will return,” says AlMajali. “That is why we need to work on all fronts to make sure that they don’t commit a crime again.” The most popular activity these days at the Juweideh CRC for women is learning how to make and bake desserts, which Um Dia’a participates in. “Prior to coming to the center, I didn’t know how to make anything,” says Um Dia’a, wearing a navy blue robe over her jeans. “I was illiterate, but now I am learning how to read.” She also admits to feeling anxious about returning to her poverty-ridden neighborhood and providing her five children with food and shelter. “At the CRC, there are many services,” she explains. “I want to be free, but I would be lying to you if I said I was not nervous about my future.” Security and government officials all agree that if Jordanian society does not begin to change their attitude towards prisoners, giving them a second chance, their efforts will not completely succeed. “In cooperation with the Police Security Directorate we are trying to change the concept of prison as being a place solely for punishment to one that rehabilitates,” says Mohammad Khasawneh, secretary general of the MoSD. “On our part, we are accepting that concept more rapidly than the average Jordanian citizen, who perhaps still struggles to recognize that a prison can actually be a place for rehabilitation.” The burden to step up the training process (including providing teachers and doctors) seems to be placed mainly on government agencies and the Police Security Directorate. “We do a lot of training, and we are trying our best to do our part, but there needs to be more effort on the part of civil society,” says AlMajali. A recent study conducted by the Higher Council for Science and Technology revealed that Jordan suffers from a shortage in mental health services, and finding mental health professionals who are willing to work with prisoners is even more difficult, admits Hatem Al-Azraai, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health. “It is a nationwide problem, but we are working on encouraging more Jordanians to specialize in this field and we are offering residency programs twice a year,” he points out. When Um Dia’a talks about feeling guilty about participating in a crime, she also mentions her five children and begins to cry. “I rarely see my children,” she complains, having been at the center for five months now. “It’s not easy for my mother to come here, as she is an old lady and is the only one taking care of my children.” Things are progressing though; the MoSD opened a nursery inside the facility for women only recently, with Khasawneh remarking that, “After examining cases inside the prison, the idea of opening a nursery became something that we needed to do. By depriving the mother from her children, we would be depriving the child from healthy development, and in the end, the children are not to blame for their mother’s wrong-doing.” Currently, five social workers take care of infants at the nursery, along with five security officers assigned with them as a precaution. There are women requesting to be reunited with their infants, and the only psychologist assigned to the CRC will assess whether they are mentally stable to be with their children. Indeed, sometimes children under three years old may find themselves in prison or CRC with a parent, especially when there are no extended family members to help. And, although some have lauded the creation of the nursery in Juweideh’s CRC, for others it raises concern. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) advises that infants should be accommodated with their mothers where possible, although, the environment is a totally unnatural one for a child. “The truth is even if it’s a rehabilitation center, it is not an environment for an infant or a child to be in,” says Yazan Abdo, an expert in development and education. “I would prefer to see the child or infant in an adjacent or nearby place where the mothers would spend time with them, but it would not be at the CRC.” Worldwide, the goal of the first modern prisons was to enforce strict regulations, confinement, and forced and deliberate labor. It was not until the late 19th Century that rehabilitation through education and vocational training became the standard goal of prisons. Muwaqar 1, a prison in Jordan for men, was turned into a CRC only two years ago. The implementation of programs such as The Twinning Project at this facility, which includes the implementation of human rights principles and international standards, may determine the direction of reform elsewhere, with one of the main articles in this project including developing classification for prisoners. “Right now classification is implemented according to the crime,” proclaims AlMajali. “This is incorrect because not all who are convicted of theft or murder should be together,” he adds. “The personality of the prisoner, his integration into the center or prison, and overall behavior should be the determining factors.” At the police training and development center on the outskirts of Amman, women in uniforms were attending a several day workshop on human rights and safeguarding prisoners. Not far from this training room, another workshop is taking place for higher-ranking male officers; Krista Schipper, a prison director in Austria and Irene Kock, a lead prosecutor at the Ministry of Justice in Austria, discuss short and long-term goals with them. They exchange ideas on procedures to release prisoners earlier, a change in the visit system, as well as infrastructure. Large flip-chart notes hang in front of the room, filled with answers and suggestions by the Jordanian high-ranking officers. In a parking lot outside the training center, police officers dressed in blue uniforms, helmets, and carrying clear shields with black rims, move in unison from left to right. Back in the female training workshop, Abdullat is demonstrating the new technique of handcuffing from the front instead of the back of the body due to health reasons; the women are enthusiastic to learn the procedure. “Watch each step and tell your colleague if she is doing something wrong,” explains Abdullat. “Look at the angle she is standing – did she insert her finger between the handcuffs and the prisoner’s wrist to make sure there is enough blood circulation?” The women, mostly in their twenties and thirties nod enthusiastically. Suddenly the officer holding the handcuffs realizes she is standing too close to the woman she is handcuffing, causing her harm if the prisoner should become violent. “This is my first time at this,” she says looking at the other women sitting. “This is all new – I need more time and I will get it right.” The other officers encourage her to repeat the process from the beginning, and she succeeds the second time around. “Every time there is change, there is struggle and resistance,” says AlMajali. “Otherwise it is not really change.”     May 7, 2009 Facility Holding Most Prisoners (Sawqa)     2059 Individuals Correctional and Rehabilitation Centers and Prisons (Total)    12 Facilities Total  Men:  7834   Women: 235 Source: Jordan Correctional and Rehabilitation Centers (Administration) NOTE: 6 months after this article was published incidents of police violence towards citizens including those detained at police stations seem to have increased. More specifically 3 incidents, 2 of them leading to death have been reported. This is a letter to the editor published in the Jordan Times. November 18, 2009 Cause for Concern The recently publicised cases of alleged abuse by Public Security Directorate (PSD) personnel are indeed a cause for serious concern. Notwithstanding the results of the investigations and associated legal processes currently under way, an in-depth and professionally conducted analysis of the inner workings of the PSD is needed to correctly pinpoint the causes of such alleged behaviour and recommend the necessary remedies to stop their reoccurrence. The first major modernisation and reform programme at PSD started in the mid-1980s. The programme was initiated and driven by a forward thinking PSD director and his team who quickly and correctly realised that the three main tracks of the programme (manpower, equipment and regulatory) are totally integrated, complementary and their development should go hand in hand. They also concluded that by delaying reforms in one track for any reason would have a detrimental effect on the remaining tracks. The programme proceeded in full force as planned until the late 1980s or early 1990s, when two major obstacles crossed its path. One was internal (our own financial crisis of 1988) and the other external (the first Gulf war of 1990). Both obstacles had a severe and negative impact on the programme. Funding came to a standstill and focus shifted from internal law and order issues to external or regional ones, and remained so for quite a few years. Once the general financial situation started to stabilise, the equipment-related track of the programme was restarted, but the other two lagged behind. This created a sizeable gap between the modern operational systems and equipment currently deployed at PSD, and the development in the training, psychological, basic human rights and legal background of PSD personnel assigned to interact with citizens and use such systems and equipment on daily basis. Fresh reform efforts are now required on the manpower and regulatory tracks in order to bring them up to speed. Maybe a qualified civilian will be considered for appointment as the next director of PSD in order to lead such an effort when the time for change arrives. Vatche Dakessian, Amman...

Jordan's Rainbow Street Living

Somewhere Over On Rainbow - Published in Living Well Magazine Decades after it first opened, customers still flock to Awni supermarket on Rainbow Street in Jabal Amman. The shop owner, Mohammad Swenda, says for many years the neighborhood was quiet, his customers familiar, and every day was predictable. But, in the past few years, change arrived drastically for this relatively historic and calm part of the capital.  In 2005, the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) identified Jabal Amman as a “heritage attraction point.” The major transformation for Rainbow Street began with the JD2 million renovation of the 1,500 meter-long pathway. “Rainbow Street is a distinguished neighborhood that includes prominent historic homes,” says Fawzi Masad, deputy director of Public Works at the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM). “Due to the historical significance of the area, it was our duty to create a strategy in order to revive the neighborhood.” For some businesses in the area, the revival has generated more income. “We have had our ups and downs through the years, but we’ve been doing well lately,” says Median Al Jazerah, owner of Books@Cafe, who explains that when the café first opened on Omar Bin Al Khatab street in 1997, the narrow one-way road was dark and empty. “This place has become a haven because deep down, everyone yearns for their own history.” Due to the area’s historical significance and identity, any permits submitted to GAM have to receive approval from the archeological division. “The important aspect we have to remember about Rainbow Street is it has always been diverse both socially and architecturally,” explains Firas Al Rabady, head of the archeological division committee at GAM. “At the end of the day, we cannot accept development that will only result in destroying the identity and soul of this place.” Rainbow Street, named after the now demolished Rainbow Cinema, was one of the first settled areas in Amman. As the capital continues to expand, the avenue remains a connecting line between East and West Amman. Today several families sit down eating sandwiches on a newly built park with benches on the first circle. Young men gather with friends. After the sun sets, people sit in café’s, some prefer to sit on the sidewalks along Rainbow Street. Old Arabic music blares from inside an old café’, while a whiff of loud American hip-hop music can be heard from a car passing by. Along the road, young people on the left drink tea with mint in old shaped vintage glasses, others drink lattes and frappes they bought from a new café’ nearby. Cars zoom by, some honk while waiting for traffic to move; the sound of loud firecrackers startles some passersby. For some residents, the development in the area, including the opening of several new cafés, restaurants, shops and an all-day Friday souk is presenting a host of problems they never faced before. Parking congests the area, visitors park their cars in front of homes – privacy has become a concern. Noises from pedestrians strolling by and honking cars leave some residents sleepless at night. “We are suffering because this has become a noisy neighborhood. People peek into our gardens and at some point in the day we cannot leave our homes because it takes us hours to return due to traffic,” explains Ghassan Talhouni, who has lived in this area for 56 years. Two years ago, Al Jazerah says he was forced to resort to providing valet service for customers. Store owners are required to pay parking fees as a prerequisite for opening, even if there are no specific designated parking spots in front of their premises. Two parking lots, including one at the beginning of first circle, provide space for less than 60 cars. Both residents and visitors say there are simply not enough parking spots in comparison to the number of places springing up. “We have complained,” says Talhouni. “I am not against development, but when you want to create a strategy and decide to implement it, you present it as a whole package – including where people are going to park their cars.” Fawzi notes that GAM converted the only empty land in the locality into a parking lot. “There is simply no more empty land in the neighborhood that can be converted into space for cars,” he adds. “The goal of the renovated plan for Rainbow Street is to make it pedestrian-friendly, and the use of private cars is discouraged, while public transportation is promoted.” A group of local residents with a common aim of making a difference established the Jabal Amman Resident Association (JARA) in 2004. They endeavor to conserve the identity of Jabal Amman and manage the souk every Friday during the summer. “Over the years, some old homes were sold, others were abandoned and so, we wanted to preserve these buildings, and at the same time bring life back to this neighborhood,” says Khader Qawas, board member and treasurer of JARA. Parking, he explains, is a general problem in Amman, but more specifically in Jabal Amman. The souk opened in 2005, and each year more tables have been added. “Today, almost 5,000 people visit the market on Fridays, and on some days it can reach up to 8,000, so, we have an obvious problem with traffic and parking.” This summer, JARA received permission to use several school parking lots in the area. “I admit even that is not enough, we are trying to ease the problem at this stage,” Qawas explains. Talhouni says one of the solutions to traffic jams and parking is to transfer the souk to downtown where a long street would be closed for pedestrians, “There would be ample space for even more people to sell products, not to mention additional parking spaces,” he explains. “You will still be reviving the area because downtown is so close, but at the same time you solve a problem and give people from all over Jordan the opportunity to sell their items and showcase their talents.” Andrea Atalla moved to Jabal Amman a year ago and lives parallel to Souk Jara. Like Talhouni, she would prefer that souk Jara be moved to a non-residential area. “The music is loud in the evening, we don’t invite any guests on Friday nights in the summer, the traffic jam is horrible, it’s too loud and we can’t sit in the garden.” Some residents, she says, have complained for years. “In the evening, what you basically get are hooligans who are not allowed to go into the souk and instead sit on my car, yell, make problems and wander aimlessly in the street.” Her husband grew up in this area and says she fears what lies ahead for Rainbow Street. “I know the neighborhood is being revived and is appealing to investors,” she explains. “However, it is doing so precisely because of its identity, character and simplicity and it’s a big fear for me that the place will lose its charm.” ###...