Despite reform promises, poll finds continued media restriction

Press freedom in Jordan regressed over the course of the last year, with journalists being harassed and denied access to information, a recent survey by a local press-freedom organisation found. “Press freedom and political reform remain at a standstill,” said Nidal Mansour, director of the Centre for Defending the Freedom of Journalists (CDFJ), which conducted the survey. “These are not on successive governments’ list of priorities, despite honey-coated promises to support media freedom.” According to the study, which was published on 10 May, 84 percent of local journalists believe that press freedoms last year were “relatively lower” than the year before. “Despite all the efforts to improve media legislation, the overwhelming majority of polled journalists believe legislation serves to restrict media freedom,” said Mansour. The report also noted that journalists were regularly banned from covering conferences and official gatherings while others were “harassed” by security forces. Respondent journalists pointed to a plethora of restrictive press laws and cited numerous cases of a lack of access to official information. The country’s penal code continues to be the main law negatively affecting media freedom, said the majority of journalists, many of whom pointed specifically to the national Press and Publication Law as a primary source of media repression. Head of the Jordan Press Association Tareq Momani complained that self-censorship and government control of the major daily newspapers and television channels constituted journalists’ biggest complaint. The government, he explained, which continues to appoint chief editors to the most widely-distributed print dailies and refuses to relinquish control of the Jordan Radio and Television Corporation, has been reluctant to give up control to major media organisations. “Editors-in-chief at the major newspapers are being forced to reject sensitive articles,” said Momani. “The government isn’t serious about allowing media freedom.” About 150 journalists from a number of local media organisations took part in the poll, which documents the state of press freedom in Jordan for the fourth consecutive year.