Analysis : Jordan Changes Mind on Crackdown on Press

As crackdowns go in the Arab world, strictures that have been imposed on the press in Jordan over the last four months seemed relatively mild. But for one of the most tolerant governments in the Middle East, the measures appeared to augur an era of tough, new restrictiveness.

A number of journalists, primarily Palestinians, were banned from writing for local newspapers or foreign journals, and the passport of one was taken away by the security police. At least one foreign journalist, an American television correspondent based in Israel, was barred from entering the country after writing an uncomplimentary article about Jordan’s government.

Other correspondents were detained while reporting on student demonstrations in May at Yarmouk University, in which three people were killed, and while covering charges of vote fraud during an off-year election for Parliament in the northern town of Irbid.

At Odds With Media

Jordan, which had historically welcomed the foreign press and was regarded as one of the most liberal Arab states on questions of civil liberties, suddenly found itself at continuing odds with the world’s media.

Sitting under a white marquee on the manicured lawns of his Nedwa Palace, Jordan’s King Hussein on Saturday indicated that the campaign was over. In a scrupulously polite news conference with two dozen local and foreign journalists, the Jordanian monarch breathed life into what many journalists here have dubbed a “peace offensive” with the press.

“I am very happy to have this opportunity to welcome our friends,” Hussein said to the gathered journalists. “I very much hope that in the future we’ll have many similar chances of meeting to discuss all matters of interest to you in a frank and candid way.”

In part, the so-called peace offensive was significant as indirect confirmation that, after a period of introspection, Jordan has opted to resume its course as a moderate, pro-Western country in a part of the world where dictatorship is the rule. “After all, we’re not Syria or Iraq,” said one high-ranking official.

Changes in Kuwait

The change was especially dramatic in light of the termination of Parliament and the imposition of press censorship only a few days earlier in Kuwait, once the freest Arab country on the Persian Gulf. Now, a censor sits at each newspaper, and Western correspondents’ requests to visit Kuwait have been answered with a polite telex saying the moment is “inconvenient.”

Formerly, Jordan was one of the few Arab countries to recognize that its international standing could be shaped by its relations with the press, although in recent weeks Jordanian officials were complaining bitterly that the Western media had embarked on a campaign to blacken Jordan’s image abroad.

Perhaps the most galling to the Jordanians were reports from Jerusalem suggesting that the Israelis, for all their censorship and closing of Arab newspapers, appeared more tolerant of Palestinian journalists than was Jordan.

The abrupt about-face also was revealing, however, in that it indicated the extent to which a country like Jordan is still very much a reflection of the moods and beliefs of a single man: Hussein.

Crackdown in February

While the crackdown on Palestinians, including Palestinian journalists, began in February, when the king ended political coordination with the Palestine Liberation Organization, it was not until recent weeks that the campaign gathered full force. For much of this time, the king was out of the country, and the inference is that upon his return, he moved forcefully to “turn the battleship around,” in the metaphor of one senior Western diplomat.

So, after Hussein had been briefed on the situation, banned journalists were permitted to write again. Lamis Andoni, a respected local reporter and expert on the PLO, was given back her passport and allowed to officially resume sending reports to such journals as the Guardian newspaper in London and the New York Times.

After four months of ignoring journalists, both local and foreign, government ministers were suddenly accessible for interviews--another rarity in the Arab world. Even the minister of information, who was renowned for artfully avoiding journalists’ telephone calls, began inviting reporters around for tea.

Invitations to Journalists

On Sunday, invitations went out to journalists around the Arab world--even foreign correspondents based in Israel were called--to attend another get-together with Hussein on Tuesday. Reporters based in Amman were being inundated with invitations from government officials--even though, as one remarked, without the crackdown, there wasn’t much news to report.

Exactly how much the king was aware of the crackdown on the media will probably never be known. He did meet two months ago with local newspaper editors who outspokenly criticized press censorship, which is usually exercised in subtle admonitions from the Information Ministry.

However, even the new “peace offensive” does not mean that Jordan will be as open as the United States, Western Europe or even Israel.

After the campaign had been largely de-fanged last week, Jordan closed the offices of Fatah, the mainstream guerrilla wing of the PLO headed by Yasser Arafat.

While the closure of the offices was widely reported, in the form of a government statement, the expulsion from the country the next day of Khalil Wazir, Arafat’s deputy in the PLO, went unmentioned in the local Jordanian media, even though 60% of the country is Palestinian.