Cairo August 30, 2012

ANHRI denounces today, the approval of the Jordanian government of the amended law for Press and Publications, on Wednesday, August 22, although it restricts the freedom of opinion and expression and sieging the publication on the Internet and the mounting objections.

The Jordanian government has decided to present the amended law for Press and Publications to the House of Representatives in order to be displayed to the special session of the National Assembly which will start its work on next Sunday.

The law stipulates in some articles that the comments published in the electronic print is a press material, the electronic print bears and its owner, editor and director and any of its employees of the relevant to the said material shall be responsible for it” as well as it stipulates that “of not publishing comments if it included information or facts are not related to news or not validated or constitute a crime under the provisions of this Law or any other laws” and in addition to” keep a special record of the comments sent to print, for a period of not less than 6 months”.

It comes within the framework of an invitation made by many websites to coordinate a number of escalatory steps and mass protests, to press and dissuade the government from the adoption of such articles that represent a restriction of freedom of opinion and expression, especially as it stipulates a the responsibility of the website of what is written from the comments visitors and readers of any material the website-publishes, where about 500 websites replacing its homepage with another black reading “you may be deprived from the content of this website under the amendments of the press and publications Law and the Jordanian government censorship on the Internet”, in addition to  several demonstrations in several Jordanian cities under the title “Friday of freedom of the media as it described such policies of to silence of the mouthes.

It should be noted that they did not consult journalists’ union in the preparation of this law, which led to the resignation of Ms. Ikhlas El-Qady and Rakan Saaadh from the union membership.

ANHRI said that: “Any website is not responsible for the comments posted by the visitors, because most of the comments are posted automatically and the affected must send email or request to administration of the website to ask them to remove it, not to punish the website or the media mean due to comments are not written or proposed by them and they must be only responsible for what they have wrote”.

ANHRI added “that such materials represent a restriction on the freedom of the press and the freedom to use the Internet and emphasizes the need to stop the imprisonment and criminal prosecution in the cases of publication, calling to ensure the freedom of opinion and expression for all the citizens and journalists.”