• Human Rights in Jordan
    Jordanian authorities increasingly resorted to force, arrests, and politicized charges to respond to continuing demonstrations demanding political and economic reform. The fifth prime minister to serve since the protests started in January 2011, Abdullah Ensour, took office in October 2012. Parliamentary elections took place in January 2013, under a 2012 electoral law that opposition groups complain favors loyalist candidates. The Muslim Brotherhood-led opposition boycotted the election.
  • © 2011 Human Rights Watch
    Jordan: Rescind Order to Block Websites
    Jordanian authorities should immediately rescind an order to censor 263 unlicensed local news websites.The government should also scrap recent legislation that allows it to encroach on online media freedom. The attempts to regulate online speech violate Jordan’s constitutional free expression guarantees.
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  • Domestic Plight
    How Jordanian Laws, Officials, Employers, and Recruiters Fail Abused Migrant Domestic Workers
  • Slow Reform
    Protection of Migrant Domestic Workers in Asia and the Middle East
  • Stateless Again
    Palestinian-Origin Jordanians Deprived of their Nationality
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Jordan

  • Jordan: Rescind Order to Block Websites
    Jun 4, 2013
    Jordanian authorities should immediately rescind an order to censor 263 unlicensed local news websites.The government should also scrap recent legislation that allows it to encroach on online media freedom. The attempts to regulate online speech violate Jordan’s constitutional free expression guarantees.
  • Jordan: End Free Speech Prosecution
    May 4, 2013
    Jordanian criminal justice authorities should immediately drop their three-year prosecution of two intellectuals and withdraw all charges against them.
  • This is why Jordan can't be trusted on torture
    Apr 29, 2013
  • Blocking Syrian Refugees Isn’t the Way
    Apr 23, 2013
    The refugee burden that Syria’s neighbors are shouldering is heavy and should not be borne alone. But keeping people fleeing for their lives in buffer zones inside Syrian borders risks trapping rather than protecting them.
  • No free pass for Jordan on refugees
    Mar 27, 2013
    The United States should provide aid to the refugees but ensure that no aid money goes to or through the Jordanian government as long as Jordan sends some refugees back to face death - even as it welcomes others.
  • Jordan: Students Accused of ‘Devil Worship’
    Mar 26, 2013
    Jordanian authorities should immediately charge or release five Al al-Bayt university students detained since March 12, 2013, after other students alleged they had desecrated a Quran and engaged in “devil worship” . The students, who deny the accusations and have neither been charged nor taken before a judge, were assaulted by a crowd of other students, and their attackers should be brought to justice, Human Rights Watch said.
  • Jordan: President’s Visit Shouldn’t Ignore Refugees in Peril
    Mar 22, 2013

    During his visit Friday to Jordan, there’s little doubt President Obama will praise it for its hospitality toward some 350,000 Syrian refugees. While praise and support for Jordan’s reception of many Syrian refugees is deserved, the president should not give Jordan a free pass when it comes to its forcible returns of Palestinian refugees to Syria.

  • Jordan: Obama Should Press King on Asylum Seeker Pushbacks
    Mar 21, 2013
    Jordan is routinely and unlawfully rejecting Palestinian refugees, single males, and undocumented people seeking asylum at its border with Syria, said Human Rights Watch and Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic (the Harvard Clinic).
  • Saudi Arabia: Disclose Whereabouts of Jordanian Activist
    Mar 8, 2013
    Saudi authorities should immediately disclose the whereabouts and condition of the Jordanian activist Khaled al-Natour, and free him or charge him with a recognizable criminal offense.
  • Letter to the Saudi Interior Ministry Regarding Khaled al-Natour
    Mar 8, 2013
    We write to request information on the whereabouts and condition of Khaled al-Natour, 27, a Jordanian citizen whom Saudi authorities detained at King Khaled International Airport in Riyadh on January 6, 2013. According to information we have received, he has been held incommunicado since that date and authorities have not released any information regarding the reasons for his arrest or his whereabouts. We call on you to release him without delay or for the appropriate authorities to charge him before a court of law if there is evidence that he is responsible for any criminal offense.
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