VIII. Due Process Violations

Unilateral Decisions

Detainee accounts of the procedures applied in their arrests highlight the arbitrariness with which governors wield their powers of administrative detention. In some cases, detainees only learned of their administrative detention status after being transferred to prison, in violation of provisions of the Crime Prevention Law itself.

Sa’d al-Wadi al-Manasir, the governor of Amman, described to Human Rights Watch the official version of what transpires in the detention process:

When determining an administrative detention or a request for a guarantee, witnesses are called, other evidence is presented, the police file is studied, and the person in question is present. He or she has a right to an attorney. Years ago, many attorneys came to represent clients, but then they saw what the law was about and lost interest.[79]

These assertions stand in stark contrast to the consistent accounts of administrative detainees and lawyers who handled such cases. They claim that only rarely is such due process observed.[80] Most, but not all, of the detainees Human Rights Watch spoke with were physically present during procedures leading to their detention, but they rarely met with the governor or district administrator, as required by the Crime Prevention Law. Although the law empowers only the governor and other “administrative rulers” to exercise the powers of the law, in practice lower-ranking governorate officials rubberstamp police arrests as administrative detentions.[81]Usually, those in custody came into brief contact with a clerical official who processed the paperwork for their administrative detention. Sometimes the detainees, who were kept in special cells within the governorate building, did not meet any official other than the police officers who escorted them and picked up paperwork authorizing the administrative detention.[82]

In most cases of administrative detention Human Rights Watch investigated, no meaningful review of the circumstances leading to arrest or assessment of the appropriateness of detention took place. Detainees had no opportunity to effectively challenge the version of events leading to arrest or summons that the police put forward. Several detainees told Human Rights Watch that officials instructed them not to speak at all while officials spent a few minutes reviewing their files and then ordered their detention.

None of the detainees Human Rights Watch spoke to had a lawyer with him or her at the time of their detention review. One lawyer, Nedal Dweik, told Human Rights Watch that Amman’s deputy governor, Khalid al-Armuti, with whom he enjoys friendly relations, once tried to bar him from being present during the investigation of his client, and only agreed when Dweik insisted on his legal right to be present.[83]None of the detainees had access to any paperwork in which the governor laid out what actions of the suspect led him to invoke which sections of the Crime Prevention Law. The detainees also did not learn the precise reasons for their detention, regardless of whether the detainee went to the governorate or personally met officials involved in signing the detention order.

Zayid Khalid is one of those administrative detainees who never saw an official at the governorate or learned the reasons for his administrative detention. Khalid told Human Rights Watch,

On July 20 [2007] I was arrested for resisting the police. They took me to court the same day, and the judge let me go free, but the police took me back to the police station, then to the governorate, into a cell. I didn’t see anyone. One hour later, the police took me back to their station, and from there we went to Qafqafa [prison]. Only here did I learn that I was administratively detained. I have three previous convictions for writing bad checks.[84]

The police officers who arrested Nizar al-Sa’id similarly arrogated to themselves powers of detention and sought only formal confirmation from the governorate. The governor had obliged al-Sa’id, as part of a previous detention and condition of release, to report to the local police station every day at 10 a.m. and at 4 p.m., and to observe a 6 p.m. curfew. Al-Sa’id told Human Rights Watch,

On May 24, 2007, I had to go to the hospital for an emergency. A machine injured my arm at work. I had an operation. On [Wednesday] May 30, I got out, and went straight to the head of the criminal investigation branch to notify him of my hospital stay. He sent me to the Madina Police Station, from which they sent me to the security directorate at 5 p.m., and from there to Muwaqqar prison, where I arrived on Thursday, May 31, at 11 p.m. and was placed with the administrative detainees. After three days, I was taken to Juwaida [prison], where I spent 15 days. From there to Qafqafa [prison]. I’ve been here 60 days.[85]

Firas Nur al-Din also never met the governor or any other official, and had no opportunity to contest the decision to detain him administratively:

I was arrested on May 15 in Dhulail, Zarqa. They took me to Hasan police station, where I spent eight days alone in a cell. On the eighth day, I was taken to the governorate. I stayed in a cell there, and they took a paper upstairs, the governor signed, and I was taken to the police directorate, and from there to Birin [prison]. I did not personally see the governor or anyone else. That was [the extent of] the investigation and decision to administratively detain me.[86]

Ahmad Furaihat, the Amman public bus driver mentioned in Chapter VII, was taken to the governorate by the police who ignored his conditional release by a conciliation court judge, but he only learned he had been administratively detained by the governor from the policeman accompanying him to Juwaida prison.[87]Khalid al-Sayyid, also mentioned in Chapter VII, said of his administrative detention, “I did not go to the governorate or see anyone in this process.”[88]

Mahmud Musa, detained in Mafraq governorate, fared a little better. He had a face-to-face confrontation with an official in the governorate late in the afternoon, after “the governor and all others had left,” but he did not have an opportunity to challenge the reasons for his arrest.His presence remained without bearing on those procedures. He told Human Rights Watch,

I was taken to the governorate, but only got to see the clerk, ‘Umar al-Shuraida, who signed my detention order. The governor and all others had left at that point. There were three policemen with me, they brought my file, but I couldn’t look at it. They didn’t ask me anything except my name. I asked al-Shuraida why I was being detained, and he told me: “Shut your trap.” The whole thing only lasted five minutes. He set bail at 5,000 dinars. A guy called Riyadh al-‘Ababna had the papers signed upstairs while I was sent down to a cell.[89]

Wa’il Ahmad managed to see the governor and to have his family present during his administrative detention by the governor of Amman. Despite this, he said, the governor gave them no reason for the detention and that he “just sent me to Juwaida prison.”[90] Hani Shakir, a bus driver on the Salt-Amman route, was arrested on August 22, 2007, with his boss, Ali Hudaidi, who owned the bus company, because passengers had complained about being dropped off at the wrong stops. He said that he “saw the district administrator for one to two minutes, and was then taken to jail.”[91] Ali Hudaidi, the bus company owner, told Human Rights Watch that “the district administrator of ‘Ain al-Basha summoned me on August 22. I saw him personally. He sent me down to a cell, and later I learned that I had been arrested administratively. Then I was sent to Salt prison.”[92]

Rejection of guarantors and guarantees

In theory, administrative detention is the result of the failure of a person summoned or arrested to give an undertaking regarding their conduct, or the inability of a person making such an undertaking to provide the guarantees set by the governor. In the latter such cases the governor specifies the financial sum that a detainee must present to gain his or her release, usually from around 1,000 to 5,000 dinars (approx. US$1,400-7,000), but also occasionally rising to 30,000 dinars ($42,500) . This sum serves to guarantee that the individual in question will comply with his or her undertaking to refrain from behavior that led to the initial arrest and to respect the kingdom’s laws.

There are two types of guarantees. One, the monetary guarantee, the governor imposes directly. To provide this guarantee, proof of assets is not necessary, and the person pays a stamp duty of 0.3 percent of the amount in question, payable at a regular post office. In the second type, the judicial guarantee, the governor also fixes a monetary value to the guarantee, but the guarantor in this case presents title to an asset, typically a piece of land, as collateral, and pays registration fees of around 0.5 per cent of the value of the guarantee to the clerk of the court.[93] Administrative detainee Wa’il Ahmad told Human Rights Watch, “If you don’t have [assets] yourself, you have to find someone with land and pay him a fee to present it as a bond, and then pay the government fees.”[94]Human Rights Watch is not aware of any case in which the government actually collected on the collateral for breach of a guarantee.[95] A guarantee can also include a requirement to register once or twice daily at a police station and to observe a nightly curfew (“supervised residence”).

Article 7 of the Crime Prevention Law gives a governor the right to “refuse to accept any guarantor.” The wording of article 7 would indicate that such a refusal should be limited to persons, for example tribal leaders, village headmen, or their city equivalents, who give personal, not financial, guarantees that a suspect will not misbehave in the future. In practice, however, governors and their officials regularly use this provision also to reject monetary guarantees in the form of collateral put forward by detainees’ relatives to secure his or her release.

Wa’il Ahmad told Human Rights Watch that at the time the governor ordered his detention

I presented my mother as my financial guarantor, but she was rejected. Since going to prison, I have presented 25 petitions for release, with my wife, mother, father, and brothers acting as guarantors. They presented a piece of land as a financial collateral, worth 10,000 dinars as specified, and paid the fees of 0.8 per cent on the value set for the guarantee, but I was not released.[96]

Another administrative detainee, Muhammad Abu ‘A’isha, said that he, too, had repeatedly tried without success to deposit the monetary guarantee set by the governor. He told Human Rights Watch that having been in bailed from remand custody by a judge (see Chapter VII), police kept him in their custody and the next day

took me to the governorate. I didn’t see the governor, only his secretary, ‘Atif al-Batush. He said, “I am setting a 10,000 dinar monetary guarantee for you.” He went to see the governor and came back. He said we needed to pay 30 dinars now. I called my sister’s husband to come and pay, but ‘Atif and the governor refused to accept the payment. It all took five minutes. Then they took me back to the station, to the security directorate, and from there to the prison. Yesterday, my sister’s husband tried again to pay, with no luck.[97]

Hashim ‘Atwa said that the governor ordered him administratively detained, based on a complaint of theft against him:

At the governorate, an official set a monetary guarantee of 10,000 dinars for me. Yesterday, my mother presented the guarantee, but the governorate refused. All they do upon arrest or at the governorate is to look into the computer whether there are prior arrests and keep you locked up if you have [an arrest record].[98]

Two other administrative detainees told Human Rights Watch that they had tried to pay the fees payable on a monetary guarantee or to present a personal guarantor to gain their freedom, because they had no collateral to put forward. In Juwaida prison, ‘Anbar Muhammad, a street vendor, said the governor “ordered me detained administratively, with a 10,000 dinar monetary guarantee, which means 35 dinars in fees. My wife tried to pay the fees and present a personal guarantee two days ago, but the governorate official refused.[99] Ra’i’ Hurani, in Swaqa prison, said that after Ahmad al-Shiyab, the Zarqa province governor, detained him administratively on a 5,000 dinar monetary guarantee, he tried “six times to have my mother act as my personal guarantor, but the governor rejected this.”[100]

Women in administrative detention face additional, gender-based obstacles to regaining their freedom. The lawyer Nedal Dweik, who has represented administratively detained women for over five years, told Human Rights Watch that “a governor is stronger than a judge” and can refuse to release a woman if her sponsor has a criminal record, if the judge perceives a continued threat against her life, or simply in order to teach her a lesson: “Governors accuse the [women] of being prostitutes and then detain them. They sometimes refuse their sponsor. They use their authority depending on their mood.”[101] Dweik represented Amira Z., the mother of three mentioned in Chapter III, who defied police suspicious that she was an abuse victim by not giving her husband’s name. The governor refused to allow her husband to act as her sponsor despite his repeated attempts to negotiate her release. Dweik, commented, “Her own husband is willing to be her sponsor but [the governor] refused. What does this mean? He’s trying to teach her a lesson.”

Challenging Lawfulness of Detention

Detainees can initiate a judicial, but not an administrative review. The Crime Prevention Law does not itself mandate any review—administrative or judicial—of governorate administrative detention.

One former governor told Human Rights Watch that every week officials in his governorate reviewed all cases of administrative detention to determine whether conditions for detention still obtain, although such assertions could not be verified, and other statements of this former official about observing due process stand in stark contrast to observed reality.[102] The minister of interior may also review a governor’s detention orders and amend the conditions of the monetary guarantee or the personal pledge to be undertaken by the detainee. Human Rights Watch has not received replies to its inquiries to the ministry about these reviews and has not heard from any person other than former governors about such regular reviews. What is more, two lawyers interviewed stated that to their knowledge no reviews took place. It is therefore doubtful how regular and how effective these internal reviews are.

Detainees can challenge their detention before the High Court of Justice within 60 days.[103][Clive Bal1]  Lawyer Ahmad ‘Uthman, who has represented clients in such challenges, told Human Rights Watch that the court reviews the legality of the order, which involves only the procedural steps.[104] Other Jordanian lawyers concurred that the court does not assess whether a suspect fulfilled any of the criteria for administrative detention provided for in article 3 of the Crime Prevention Law: That is, detainees cannot challenge whether the conditions of personal undertaking match the reasons for arrest, and the judges do not probe whether evidence available to the governor was sufficient for him to determine that the person summoned or arrested posed “a danger to the people.”[105] The High Court of Justice has ruled in at least one instance on the substantive assessment by a governor that a person ordered detained had constituted a “danger to the people,” finding the governor’s order for his administrative detention lawful. In other such challenges, the court confined its review to compliance of the governor’s actions with the law.[106] The court can affirm or overturn a detention order, but cannot amend it, ‘Uthman said.[107] The court also has the authority to award compensation for unlawful detention, and court verdicts have upheld the right to compensation.[108] The Ministry of Justice did not respond to a letter of December 16, 2008, in which Human Rights Watch asked it to clarify whether the High Court of Justice conducts procedural or substantive reviews of orders of administrative detention.

In a rare case of a governor’s failure to comply with the court’s decision, prosecutors filed a criminal complaint against the district administrator in Mafraq following the continued detention of the complainant despite a court order for his release. In 2005 a criminal court found the district administrator of Mafraq guilty of wrongful deprivation of liberty and sentenced him to prison.[109] The administrator had jailed a person in lieu of his wanted father and refused to release him following the High Court of Justice verdict annulling the detention. According to Amman governor Dr. Sa’d al-Wadi al-Manasir, “The governor can be held liable for making wrong decisions. The court has in the past cancelled some orders of detention, but no governor has been judicially or otherwise punished.”[110] Indeed, the Mafraq case is the only one in recent years that Human Rights Watch is aware of in which a governorate official has been prosecuted for wrongful deprivation of liberty.

In practice, judicial reviews are rare. There are three chief obstacles to an effective court challenge. First, it is mandatory to hire a lawyer licensed to appear at the High Court of Justice.[111] The poor do not have the right to free legal assistance, and lawyers’ fees for such cases start at 250 dinars (US$350) per case. Second, the president of the High Court sets fees for cases brought to the court ranging from 30 to 300 dinars.[112] Although administrative detainees usually benefit from low court fees, those already unable to pay the government fees associated with presenting a monetary guarantee to the governor, usually in the range of 20 to 50 dinars, can hardly afford to pay lawyers’ and court fees. Third, there is no mechanism to inform detainees of their right to challenge decisions in court and the means to do so, whether at the time of arrest, detention by the governor, or entry into prison. Thus, most detainees do not know about their right and only the more educated and well-off are able to avail themselves of it.

Locked Up Indefinitely

Administrative detention in Jordan, in addition to being highly arbitrary, can last indefinitely when officials repeatedly reject guarantors and guarantees, given the inability to effectively challenge detention orders. The majority of administrative detainees spend less than 12 months in prison, but there is no fixed end date for their detention.

This uncertainty of duration is a significant difference between administrative and judicial detention. Administrative detainees also cannot rely on routine amnesties or case reviews at the governorate or national level. Several women had spent more than 10 years in “protective” custody before 2008, when authorities transferred them to the Wifaq Center, a government shelter. Some foreigners, too, had been in administrative detention for years because their home countries were unwilling or unable to issue them with travel documents, without which Jordanian authorities were unwilling to release them. Jordanian men threatened with tribal revenge may also spend indefinite amounts of time administratively detained.

Ahmad Ali, from Irbid, arrested following a dispute that became physical, said he did not know when he might be released. The governor rejected his brother as a personal guarantor, and fixed a high monetary guarantee. “I don’t know how many thousands of dinars [the guarantee was], but I couldn’t pay,” he said.[113] Ra’i’ Hurani, 41, said he had a prior criminal record and spent 20 years of his life in prison. He had been under administrative detention for six months when Human Rights Watch visited him. “I cannot get out, now, and there’s no time limit on my detention, as far as I know,” he said. “You can go to court, to the Court of Supreme Justice [sic], but you need 250 dinars to file an appeal, and another 250 dinars for a lawyer. Who has 500 dinars?”[114]

Because of the inherent difficulty of challenging the legality of their detention in court, administrative detainees frequently go on hunger strikes to draw attention to their cases and to force a review, as discussed below.

The lot of women: Male sponsors, marriage, or indefinite detention

Governors place additional, discriminatory conditions on adult women by denying them the same conditions for release that are available under the personal guarantee system available to men. Governors treat adult women in protective custody like legal minors by denying them the right to live on their own and therefore forcing many to endure indefinite detention.

Unlike male administrative detainees, who are generally detained for weeks or months, female detainees typically remain in detention much longer, sometimes indefinitely. Governors allow only family members (generally male relatives) to act as sponsors for female administrative detainees, a restriction not applied to men. Governors also typically hold the release of women in protective custody hostage to a pledge by male family members that they will not harm the woman. The majority of female detainees whom Human Rights Watch interviewed had no relative willing or able to act as their guarantor, and thus have little hope of release. Rania B., 28, an administrative detainee who had faced sexual violence at home (see below), told Human Rights Watch, “What did I do to end up in prison? How’s society going to look at me when I get out? How can I find a guarantor in prison? Governors only know how to send people to Juwaida [prison] but how do we get out?”[115]

A woman’s detention, in and of itself and apart from the accusations that prompted it, is often enough to cause her family to abandon her and refuse to act as her guarantor. While male detainees are often able to reintegrate into society, even if with difficulty, the societal costs of detention for women are far greater. As one women’s rights activist put it, “Their futures are gone.”[116]

Munira F., a 40-year-old woman, was detained in protective custody for 13 years because the local governor refused to allow her to live alone. She told Human Rights Watch,

My sister made a mistake with a young man and my family shot her. That’s why I’m here. The first time [my brothers and father] beat us, my sister was in my arms. They killed her. They didn’t say what she did, just that she made a mistake. I forgave my brother who was charged, so he got out. My parents used to visit me before they died. They kept telling me it’s over, come back home with us but I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to live with my brothers. I just want to live alone. I believe I can live alone but they won’t let us.[117]

In the absence of a male relative willing and financially able to act as a woman’s sponsor, and to afford her protection, a female administrative detainee’s only other prospect for release is through marriage. The director of the Juwaida women’s prison told Human Rights Watch that two of the five women held in protective custody a few months prior to our visit had been released after agreeing to marriage. “The fathers told the governor that men asked to marry them and [the women] agreed. The cases were resolved around two months ago,” she said.[118]

Governors have themselves suggested marriage as a way to avoid the protective administrative detention of victims of sexual violence. The governor of Karak administratively detained Rania B. on October 30, 2006. She had filed a complaint against her family with the Family Protection Unit in Karak, alleging that her brother had molested her and two sisters. “Last Ramadan, my father also wanted me,” she told Human Rights Watch.

I told them my circumstances at home. All the dirty things they were doing. They came to my house and saw everything. They just wrote down the complaint and didn’t do anything. They said, “You’re 27 years old, we can’t intervene in your case.” They sent me to the district governor but he refused to take my case so it was sent to the governorate. The governor said “We don’t have a place to keep you except Juwaida. How are we going to let you go? Do you know anyone who will marry you?”[119]

Petitions and Hunger Strikes

As an initial step to draw attention to their cases, administrative detainees sometimes write to the authorities—usually the governor, but also the minister of interior or directly to the king. Juwaida detainee Farhan Sa’idani, in his petition, which he shared with Human Rights Watch, on October 22, 2007, informed the minister of interior, via the governor who had detained him, that

I have been administratively detained by the governor since July 12, 2005, and continue to be, despite a judicial guarantee [set by the governor]. But I am poor and I do not have a person who could present the guarantee imposed on me, and since that date I am detained and nobody knows about my case, and nobody visits me or cares for me. My detention took place without the police conducting a hearing or interview or interrogation of what I was supposed to be involved in. I was arrested without cause and I am not among those who disturb the peace or tranquility, and I have not committed any act that would call for my being shoved into prison in this arbitrary and unjust manner. I have opened all doors and found no one who would hear my voice. I put my sorrow into your hands, Your Excellency.[120]

Detainees frequently send petitions but few receive answers. Wa’il Ahmad told Human Rights Watch about his desperation and the dozens of faxes, petitions, and clemency submissions he had submitted. While in Juwaida, he said, “I sent faxes to the governor every day. Because of that, they transferred me to Swaqa. I have presented 25 petitions for release with a guarantee ... I have written many petitions for clemency.[121]

These petitions usually fail to secure a release, or even a review of the case. Detainees then often resort to hunger strikes. Aqaba prison director Husain Rawafja told Human Rights Watch,

In 2007, until August 17, we had 36 hunger strikes. Ninety-five percent of them are by administrative detainees, and 99 percent of the strikes, which last only one to two days, are successful, in that they obtain their release. We follow up with the governor, families, and other authorities, and that secures their release. Other hunger strikers demand to be moved to prisons closer to their homes.[122]

Juwaida prison director Muhammad al-Muhaimid also told Human Rights Watch that “95 percent of hunger strikers are administrative detainees. They don’t drink water and strikes are usually over within 24 to 48 hours.”[123] Qafqafa prison director Mahmud ‘Ashran and Muwaqqar prison director Rakat al-Hallalat confirmed that hunger strikes usually do not last longer than one to two days; Swaqa prison director Hani al-Majali said that the longest hunger strike had lasted one week.[124] Muwaqqar prison director al-Hallalat said, “We don’t interfere in hunger strikes.... We put the strikers in solitary confinement cells, and we remove the [handle of the] water faucet to comply with their hunger strike.”[125]

The consistency of prison directors saying that hunger strikes are very short, and acknowledging that they deprive strikers of water, indicates a policy of requiring that all hunger strikes be “dry”—that is, without fluid intake. Prison authorities place prisoners declaring a hunger strike in solitary confinement and provide no food or water until they break off their hunger strike. This is contrary to international standards, which oblige prison authorities to provide an inmate with adequate food, and water “whenever he needs it.”[126]It is up to the prisoner alone to decide whether to refuse food and fluids, or only food.

In Jordan, the law requires doctors to examine a detainee before he is placed in solitary confinement, although authorities fail to observe this requirement in practice.[127]Prison doctors have an obligation to counsel the detainee in the best interests of his health. They should warn against the severe and often irreversible effects of a “dry” hunger strike on a prisoner’s health, but in Jordan they do not do so.[128] The World Medical Association’s Declaration on Hunger Strikes (Malta Declaration) advises doctors to “also explain [to the hunger striker] how damage to health can be minimised or delayed by, for example, increasing fluid intake.”[129] Doctors may not advise prison administrations to enforce dry hunger strikes:

It is a contravention of medical ethics for health personnel, particularly physicians ... to certify, or to participate in the certification of, the fitness of prisoners or detainees for any form of treatment ... that may adversely affect their physical or mental health and which is not in accordance with the relevant international instruments, or to participate in any way in the infliction of any such treatment.[130]

Muwaqqar prison director Rakat al-Hallalat told Human Rights Watch that removing the handle of the water faucet in the solitary confinement cells for hunger strikers was done because, in his view, all hunger strikes automatically include a refusal to drink fluids.[131]

When Human Rights Watch visited Muhammad Abu ‘A’isha in Aqaba prison he was on the first day of a hunger strike. Abu ‘A’isha declared, “I will stay here till I am released or I die,” but he also complained that prison authorities had halted his medical treatment when he began his hunger strike: “I have a heart problem, but without food and water, they also stop your medication.”[132] The Malta Declaration is clear: “Treatment or care of the hunger striker must not be conditional upon suspension of the hunger strike.”[133]

Abd al-Hafizh al-Salayima had also just started a hunger strike at the time of our visit. He complained that in solitary confinement the authorities did not provide a blanket, but asserted that he “chose not to have water and food. I am protesting my administrative detention.”[134] Because Jordanian prison authorities allow only “dry” hunger strikes, he did not know that under international standards he could insist on water while refusing to eat food.

One administrative detainee in Birain, who did not want to be named, told Human Rights Watch about a hunger strike he undertook at Juwaida prison to secure his release:

I fasted in secret for the first seven days with water, then the administration found out and sent me to solitary confinement. I was only wearing my underwear. After 15 days of hunger strike, I was taken to the [Prince] Hamza hospital. I was in a dangerous state, and they started to forcibly feed me. I had clotting in the liver.[135]