Abdullah’s abuses

This report could not be further from the truth. Contrary to what the report claims, the Hashemite monarch’s violations of international law, including human rights abuses, impede security and stability in the Middle East.

Abdullah has been inciting violence against Israel, greatly contributing to tension in the Middle East. The Jordanian regime routinely describes terrorist attacks against Israelis as “heroic operations.” Jordanian media has called upon the Palestinians to wage terrorist attacks against Israelis, and the king considers it is his duty to “defend Al-Aqsa” while alleging Israeli violations of the status quo, helping to fuel the myth that Al-Aqsa is in danger.

Although the Jordanian regime claims to oppose radical Islam and to be an ally in the struggle against the Islamic State group, Jordanian dissident Abed Almaala claims that both the Muslim Brotherhood and Abdullah’s father, the late King Hussein, played a prominent role in the ascendance of Hamas in the 1980s, and that Jordan’s present government is an ally of the Muslim Brotherhood. In addition, he claims that Jordanian statesmen are making a fortune selling weapons and vehicles to Islamic State. A former Jordanian intelligence officer even confessed that the Jordanians have provided training to Islamic State. Given such alliances, what peace and security is Abdullah really offering?

The Jordanian king’s oppression of dissidents and other human rights abuses remain systematic despite the reforms implemented by the regime. According to Human Rights Watch, “Jordanian law criminalizes speech deemed critical of the king, foreign countries, government officials and institutions, as well as Islam and speech considered to defame others.”

Jordan is not democratic and not free. Freedom House reported in January that 18 activists has been arrested in Jordan for their social media posts criticizing government corruption. In its 2015 semiannual report “Media Freedom in the Arab World,” the Center for Defending the Freedom of Journalists documented 15 incidents of serious violations against journalists in the country that year: 10 detentions, two cases of physical assault, two cases of humiliating treatment, and one injury.

Jordanian intelligence is notorious for sexually harassing, torturing, abusing, and even killing journalists and dissidents opposed to the regime. For example, Jordanian intelligence tortured and threatened to rape the relatives of Ouni Abed Boutrous Hadadeen, a Christian Jordanian intelligence officer who opposed the king.

Christian writer Nahed Hatter, who posted a cartoon critical of Islamic State, was assassinated in front of a Jordanian courthouse before he was to be tried for insulting religion. And Ali Al Malkawi was prosecuted for insulting the king after he posted a comment on Facebook criticizing Arab inaction in protecting Burmese Muslims. He spent six months in prison for his Facebook post.

Inside Jordanian police stations and prisons, systematic torture remains a problem. The U.S. State Department “Report on Religious Freedom” confirmed that at least three people died in Jordanian custody due to torture in 2016. According to a report by the quasi-governmental National Center for Human Rights, 239 complaints of torture and mistreatment in Jordanian police stations and 38 cases of torture and mistreatment in prisons were investigated in 2015. The NHCR report said that there were no effective measures by the legislative and executive branch to prosecute those who commit torture against detainees.

But human rights abuses are not only suffered by dissidents. While the Jordanian government recently rescinded Article 308, which allowed rapists to escape punishment by marrying their victims, and this is an important yet long overdue reform, the Jordanian Personal Status Code remains discriminatory. According to Human Rights Watch, articles 98 and 340, which allow reduced sentences for perpetrators of honor crimes, remain in force. Numerous countries with Muslim populations deal with the problem of honor crimes – that is not unique to Jordan. But by offering reduced sentences to the perpetrators, Jordan is actually making the problem worse.

The Jordanian legal system also mistreats women in danger of being killed in these situations. According to the U.K.-based website The New Arab, an EU study found that Jordanian women in danger of being killed in honor crimes are often put under “protective” custody, where they are frequently abused, mistreated and even tortured, concluding that Jordan’s treatment of these women violates international law. It stressed that Jordan should not be placing these women in protective custody and instead should build safe homes for them.

According to Human Rights Watch, 80,000 migrants in Jordan suffer from “nonpayment of salaries, unsafe working conditions, long hours, document confiscation, and sometimes physical, verbal and sexual abuse.” In addition, numerous Syrian refugee girls are forced into early marriages or even prostitution since they are not in school. While the Jordanian government has eased registration requirements for Syrian refugees, the issue has not been entirely solved. About a third of Syrian refugee children in Jordan remain out of school despite government pledges to change this. Access to education is a universal human right that the Jordanian government is not doing enough to ensure.

The Jordanian king is not what the EU Political Affairs Committee claims he is. In reality, he has more in common with Yasser Arafat – who played one tune for Western audiences and a completely different tune for his own people – than he has with true Arab reformers opposed to Islamist radicalism. It is time for Israel to explore other options to ensure its security along its eastern border. It is also time for the dissidents and underdogs to get a government that treats them with the dignity that they deserve.