NOVANEWS
by Siraj Davis
While the Western mainstream media hail Jordan’s Mukhaabaraat as a valuable ally in the fight against terrorism, the truth is quite different.
US President Barack Obama with Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the White House on April 21, 2009 (Pete Souza/White House)
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Aretinue of Western journalists have been heralding the daring HUMANINT (Human Intelligence) savvy Jordanian Mukhaabaraat (correct transliteration is with double ‘a’s after the consonants ‘h’ and ‘r’) or GID (General Directorate of Intelligence), which—though unorthodox—is what few pundits aver is the precious missing jigsaw on the bewildering puzzle board contra terrorism. This formidable ally converses in the same argot as the elusive enemy and is accustomed to the enemy’s terrain and culture, since the opposition derives from their backyard. The redoubtable GID also has unquestionable Western loyalties.
In Foreign Policy, Shane Harris titled his article in honor of the GID, “The Mouse that Roars.”[1] David Ignatius of the Washington Post described them as “fearless” and excelling in a “meticulous tradecraft.”[2] He furthered that former head of the Mukhaabaraat, General Saad “Pasha” Kheir, was a “genius” and “superstar.”[3] Curtis Ryan lauded them within The Middle East Centre Blog as, “considered to be among the most efficient and capable intelligence services in the region.”[4]Leonardo DeCaprio’s film “Body of Lies” engrossed into our minds the paragon of unmatched canny skills the GID possesses. Like a bright shining light at the end of a gloomy desert, glimmering off the armor of a modern Jordanian clad knight; the red, white, and green warriors of King Abdullah II, the Jordanian Mukhaabaraat, is constantly buttressed as the noble, trustworthy, and honorable solution to the malignant Islamic State enigma. The only prognathous problem is… this isn’t true.
Human Rights Record
The GID’s “Knight’s Tale” innuendo has promulgated a disturbing human rights incubus. Its ‘unorthodox’ tactics entail forcibly removing fingernails during interrogation, while Amnesty International has reported the seamy GID dangling prisoners upside down by rope or handcuffs simultaneously striking sensitive foot soles and fragile body limbs with old cables, rusted pipes, sharp whips, etc. Threats with umbrages and merciless punishment against family members of detainees is also the norm. The preceding is aimed at dragooning the confessio est regina probationum. For example, Jordanian Palestinian activist, Amer Jubran, is serving 10 years after signing a confession under such Middle Ages’ justice. Also, the Mukhaabaraat in tandem with the US’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) regularly detains suspects—some innocent like Khalid El Masri-incommunicado without alerting legal representation, friends, or family.[5]
Although King Abdullah II incredulously lauded the Hashemite Kingdom’s human rights record in 2015, the National Centre for Human Rights complained of persistent secretive imprisonment and the GID’s contrapuntal practice of due process.[6] This still hasn’t changed today.[7] Other coercive ‘chivalry’ employed by the GID involves days-length deprivation of bathroom privileges, refusal of food and water, and extinguishing cigarettes upon interviewees. [8] Human Rights Watch has documented well over hundreds of eerie interviews, meticulously detailing widespread torture and rendition against victims who were never even formally charged. [9]
GID’s Arch Nemeses: Free Speech, Thought, and Privacy
The Mukhaabaraat’s dripping tentacles aren’t solely gripping victims within its black-site dungeons. This Kraken tenons its slimy suckers over the opened mouths of everyone, except those visiting a dentist, suffocating freedom of expression into a 6th to 14th century European dark abyss. For example, Sameer Al-Qudah was incarcerated after the GID discreetly filmed his public recital of a benign poem mocking the superficiality of Jordanian politics.
Another frontier the Mukhaabaraat wrecks merciless havoc is the internet-stifling in Don Quixote tittup-its persistent deadly arch nemeses, freedom of speech and thought and privacy. According to Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing documents, Jordan ranks 3rd in the Middle East for the amount of internet data collected for the National Security Agency (NSA) and CIA.[10] When not collecting its pelf of data, the GID is the pit-bull against Roman derived Lese Majeste (6 months in prison is the punishment for insulting the King of Jordan, as with Muhammed Saeed Baker in 2014) and criticisms of Islam (punishment up to 3 years in prison, as with Nasser Qamash in 2003).[11] It also enforces popular opinion on the Hashemite Kingdom’s oppressive domestic and manipulative foreign policies. And it additionally enmeshes and punishes critics of certain Arab illuminati for quotidian public criticism.
The sundry examples are plentiful asinine and utterly appalling. And journalists are also not immune. In one instance, twelve Iraqi journalists were arrested in Amman, Jordan for criticizing Jordan’s foreign policy matters with Iraq. Journalist Zaki Bani Irshad was imprisoned 2 years in the Hashemite Kingdom for impolite comments against the UAE government. Tareq Abu al-Ragheb—a T.V. anchor for Al-Haqiqah International—was jailed for rudely urging Arab governments to aid Gaza and Palestine, while journalists Nidal Salameh was apprehended for condemning Israel’s callous bombing campaigns on Gaza, and Jamal Ayub for verbally waving his finger at Saudi Arabia’s aerial destruction of Yemen. In addition, Osama Al-Ramini—the editor for Al Balad News—was mysteriously bastilled, raising numerous eye brows, for unspecified slander against an unidentified plaintiff. Al Rai reporter Ghazi Mrayat was hauled off for factually reporting on the 2015 Irbid terrorism plot in violation of a gag order, which was never issued to his media outlet. More, an entire news staff at Jafra News was sheep-herded together and immured for poking fun at Qatar’s prince. The shameful emetic saga goes on with more intimidated casts and an even more perplexed audience.[12]
Even publicly pronouncing personal religious decisions on Facebook is a danger to Jordan’s National Security. One journalist for Al Ghad News was handcuffed at the Queen Rania International Airport when he arrived from Lebanon. This non-anchorite’s offense against Jordan’s National Security, he informed the Lebanese public that he converted from Sunni to Shia Islam.[13] In tandem with the Public Security Department, the capricious GID has successfully uplifted the eccentrically repressive Hashemite Kingdom to number 140 out of 180 countries in international rankings for press freedom. In 2013, an open letter to King Abdullah II by approximately 25 international entities, implored the Hashemite Kingdom to begin respecting journalists’ rights.[14]
The supercilious GID is no doubt a modern 17th century replica of French Benigne Dauvergne de Saint Mars while the Jordanian media and bloggers represent a Marchioly. When not Go-Joe deporting Christian missionaries for aiding helpless refugees, Facebook pages and internet websites are patrolled by Mukhaabaraat Templers.[15] Any exiguity and provocative criticism of Jordan caught in its electronic seine, is the obligation of the online presence to immediately erase. The GID’s bullying even extends to Jordanian publicists being regularly contacted on what is permissible to publish.[16] For example, Al Ghad News once refused—after a warning—to run criticism of the King by a prominent journalist.
If warnings and occasional bribery fail, extra-judicial physical violence or exorbitant fines or precarious criminal prosecution or making one a social/financial pariah is the retort.[17] For example, Al Medina News was threatened with criminal prosecution if it did not retract a report of Syrian aircraft violating Jordan’s airspace.
Occasionally, a reason is not even needed. Muhanned Khatib’s ATV News channel was, without warning or justification, shoved off the air by the Jordanian Mukhaabaraat.[18] Additionally, similar to Rob Pinto of South Florida, journalists who file official grievances discover their GID assailants unpunished, while themselves being ultimately prosecuted in reprimand.[19] Recently, Canadian blogger Ahmad Shahwan has been the epitome of such preceding antics as his pertinacious diatribes and polemics of Jordanian society and politics has resulted in a persistent media smear campaign, his Facebook page removed from the internet, and physical altercations by Jordanian expats in Canada—all of which has only aggrandized his status.[20]
In 2014, Jordan passed legislation making it a criminal offense to publish criticism on the GID, Public Security Office, or military, without permission from the GID. If all the preceding mechanisms fail, the celerity Mukhaabaraat will just block a vituperative website. It blocked 300 websites in 2013.[21]
The aforementioned dotage of incorrigible trajectory by the GID doesn’t seem to be abating either, as 2015 has marked the worst year of repression in the Hashemite Kingdom according to The Committee to Protect Journalists. More detentions of journalists have occurred in 2015 than prior, as veteran journalist Yahia Shukkeir averred, “I’ve never felt a greater chilling effect in the past 30 years.”[22]
Illusion of Democracy
The Jordanian Mukhaabaraat’s veiled infiltration and bureaucratic dominance within all facets of the Hashemite kingdom produces a legerdemain yet deceptive illusion of Democracy to the less perspicacious, as the ventriloquist Edgar Bergen’s mussitating presence beside a puppet. The fear of the GID is palpable among the average Samaritan as one past frustrated protestor demanded the Mukhaabaraat cease “intervention in all aspects of Jordanian life.”[23]
The GID’s totalitarian embedding engenders its ability to meticulously vet appointments and significantly affect the performance of duties within affluent positions of Jordanian society.[24] And even the Jordanian Parliament is not excluded. For example, (PM) parliamentary member Mohammed Atieh was denied the right by the GID to form an organization for single parents, rebutted the position of President of the Parliament, and also was ordered to remove graffiti decoration his family playfully spray-painted on his home’s wall.[25] Former PM and GID agent, Mahmoud Al-Kharabsheh, admitted the Jordanian intelligence affects 90 percent of the Parliament’s decisions.[26] In another example, American citizen and member of Jordan Parliament, Mohammed Shawabakeh, barefacedly pulled out a brobdingnagian firearm in an attempt to kill a TV host on live television for insulting the Mukhaabaraat. He was never reprimanded, censured, or investigated. When a reporter inquired as to if he was even concerned of punishment by Jordan’s Parliament he retorted, “What Parliament? This is a Parliament that most of its members were practically appointed by the Mukhaabaraat, and where its Speaker give guns as gifts to his MP allies.” Shawabkeh has also been convicted in Santa Fe, New Mexico, of fraud.[27]
Additionally, author Katy Montoya evinced in Jadaliyya that civil societies, humanitarian and human rights monitoring groups, some NGOs and charity organizations, and all sinecures are obligated to show obeisance to the GID.[28] Such preceding entities not only need the GID’s permission to operate, but also have been entirely restructured in leadership or completely dissolved upon the whims of the GID.[29] In a sense of comfortability similar to a Daesh (a.k.a. the Islamic State, ISIS, or ISIL) terrorist fulfilling the role of a high school guidance counselor, the sole human rights organization in Jordan is the National Centre for Human Rights, which was founded by former GID head Ahmad Al-Obeidat in 2002. Obeidat has a long, atrociously repugnant record of human rights violations, too.[30] Likewise, the sole major entity in charge of investigating corruption in Jordan, theAnti-Corruption Commission, is a thrall to the GID.[31] In consequence to such aforementioned contamination in Jordanian society, the stygian Mukhaabaraat circumvents blatant repression, when it may manipulate “embedded authoritarianism” within bureaucracy, denying passports and necessary documents or feigning incompetence in job duties, as author Alan George explained, dissembled in a recondite despotism “masked beneath the veneer of visible democratic institutions and practices.”[32]
Web of Corruption
The Jordanian reform protests sparked in a volatile 2010 was mostly organized by the conservative Muslim Brotherhood, which the GID has recently dissolved by closing all of its offices in April 2016, and also augmented by a smaller leftist spectrum. Those forces aimed its bulls-eye on the endemic and pernicious corruption within the Hashemite Kingdom that the Mukhaabaraat, with its own vast financial budget working in collaboration and fully integrated with Jordanian businesses, largely contributes.
The GID’s deep beneficence to corruption is interpolated into Jordan’s origin, with King Hussein bin Talal’s trusted advisors Abdel Salam Al Majali and Ash Sharif Zaid Ibn Shakir, the latter also a former Director of the GID. They, including other impudent ministers and GID, harassed land owners with their political power purchasing prepossessing Jordanian real estate at discounted prices, yet sold them on the international market for extremely exorbitant amounts.[33] Another former Head of Intelligence Mohammed Al-Thahabi was convicted of corruption and a conflated list of 51 journalists he bribed was espied, but never was investigated by The Journalists Association or the government.[34]
Journalists who do complain against the prevarication of corruption, are extra-judicially targeted. Such as Jamal Al-Muhtasib of Jerasa News, whose online criticism of corruption landed him in jail.[35] Another intelligence chief, Samih Al-Battikhi, was convicted in the courts of corruption and sentenced to two years of imprisonment, under house arrest, in his ‘villa’ of Aqaba.[36] In April of 2015, one Mukhaabaraat agent entered the GID headquarters and robbed his senior officer.[37] In June 2016, the CIA reported guns transferred to Jordanian intelligence for Syrian rebels were sold on the black market.[38] According to a 2016 poll by CNN, corruption has risen 75 percent in Jordan since the Arab Spring. Currently media attention on the emetic corruption has dissipated and taken a back seat to tendentious National Security interests in the War of Terrorism.[39] Ironically, corruption with earthquake relief funds was probably one of the precipitating reasons and portents Anastasio “Tachito” Somoza DeBayle was eventually ousted as president of Nicaragua by the FSLN insurgency in 1963.
Mukhaabaraat’s Follies
The Jordanian Mukhaabaraat’s effectiveness arrogated in DeCaprio’s Body of Lies is fictional, yet the title likely an accurate description. The progenitors of the preceding mirage most likely were the creators of Edward Lansdale’s The Quiet American. Perhaps the cadging and aggrandizing of Jordan’s GID by Western pundits is deeply entertaining and emotionally exhilarating to a Chandni Chowk to China audience, but I never was a fan of films like Johnny English. I’ve always liked documentaries more. Discussion with Western ‘savants’ occasionally lead to the Jordanian Mukhaabaraat warned the US of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, yet fail to append that approximately eight other nations adumbrated this tragedy as well.[40]
This same intelligence who couldn’t deter the rise of ISIS founder Abu Musab Zarqawi in Zarqa Jordan, yet was completely willing to shield Al Qaeda Sheikhs Abu Qatada, Abu Muhamed Al Maqdisi (Assem Barqawi), Abu Sayyaf (Muhammed Shalabi), Hamza Mansour, and others like Raghad Hussein (Saddam Hussein’s daughter) from international prosecution for supporting terrorism, but also couldn’t predict the Arab Spring.
Additionally, the GID often passes flawed Intel to its Western counterparts. For example, on Zarqawi, the GID once claimed the calumny that the ‘Iranian backed’ insurgent, who hates all Shia Muslims, was limping in consequence to an injury, until Zarqawi was sighted walking normally. Then, he was the executioner of Pennsylvania’s Nicholas Berg. A video adduced Berg’s killer as taller than Zarqawi and slicing open Berg’s throat with the right hand, instead of the GID’s profile of a left-handed Zarqawi. Western ‘erudites’ also expostulate the hyperbole that the sedulous GID’s Intel led to the successful assassination of Zarqawi. Yet, former President George Bush indicated “years of near-misses and misleads” of a farraginous trial and error methodology, eventually led to his incapacitation.[41] Later, details revealed an unmanned drone shadowing Zarqawi’s spiritual advisor Sheikh Abdul Rahmanm, was the actual determinant.[42] What isn’t stressed enough is the suspicion attached to the numerous times the GID’s Intel on Zarqawi’s exact whereabouts, concluded with Western forces’ forays ‘barely’ missing him.
The truth is the Mukhaabaraat’s efficacy couldn’t thwart the assassination of U.S. diplomat Lawrence Foley in 2002. The GID even reduced the sentence of his killer, Abu Sayyaf, to four years of incarceration. Nor could it halt the 2005 Hotel bombings in Amman, Jordan.[43] And it wasn’t keen enough to prevent gunmen opening fire on tourists twice, one conflagration in Central Amman and the other in Al Hashamiyah Square between 2006 and 2008. Nor could it thwart the attempted bombing of US State Department diplomats’ vehicles in Sahab, or an Israeli diplomatic motorcade on the Dead Sea highway in 2010.[44] The Mukhaabaraat even handed the CIA an Al Qaeda infiltrator in 2009, Humam Al Khalil Abu-Malal Al Balawi, who murdered seven CIA agents in Afghanistan.[45]
The GID also miserably failed a prisoner swap of Al Qaeda prisoner Sajida Al Rishawi for Japanese journalist Kenji Goto and Jordanian pilot Muath Kasasbeh in 2015. Goto was in Tal Abyad at the Syrian-Turkish border awaiting such final approval, before the silence by the Jordanian Mukhaabaraat—interpreted as a refusal—promulgated Goto’s beheading and Kasasbeh’s immolation by Daesh.[46] In addition, the GID’s shaky and foppish Intel to US Special forces wasn’t valuable enough to preclude two unsuccessful attempts to rescue Kasasbeh in Raqqaa, Syria.[47] Its phatic Intel also wasn’t sufficiently accurate to avert Jordan’s Air force bombing and killing Daesh’s American hostage, Kayla Mueller.[48] It was also incommensurate to deter a plethora of Jordanian parliamentary members’ sons from joining Daesh. And it remained cricketing silent, when Ibrahim Hussein Hagirat was decapitated for spying for the Mukhaabaraat.[49]
In fact, some of the CIA weapons sold on the black market by the GID were even used to kill two American contractors in November 2015, while the GID remained motionless and silent like a statue when the ‘lone wolf’ killer’s ribald tribe ceremoniously expiated the shooter’s actions with chants of “death to America” at his funeral.[50] Just as it fulminates like a statue to fractious sheikhs’ and mullahs’ sermons, demanding the death of Shia Muslims and Jews and the destruction of Israel and America, across the Kingdom. After all of the above, the amazingly preposterous bravado of some journalists toward the contumacious GID is best exemplified in the comic fact that after revealing the debauchery that the Jordan intelligence sold CIA weapons on the black market, some news establishments are now proudly announcing with barefaced agog that Russia and the US will begin sharing nuclear technology with the Hashemite Kingdom. I hope that stays off the black market.
While Western ‘scholars’ cull the banal and specious tautology that Jordan’s dearth of significant terrorist incidents in a decade of turmoil in the war-torn region is an acclimation of the Mukhaabaraat’s efficacy, they persistently neglect the gossamer and unavoidable fact that Jordan is ranked number one in foreign Daesh recruits battling in Syria and Iraq.[51] Of course there is no terrorism inside the Hashemite refuge. When a nation deports its scurf of criminals, it has less crime. When it exports its scurf of terrorists, it has less terrorism. The real problems, as some analysts and Jordan government officials have conceded, won’t commence until the conflicts in Iraq and Syria abates, and those fighters return. There are signs now unraveling which are showing the glass chin of the GID. The city of Maan has witnessed continuous incidents of separatist resistance against the Hashemite monarchy while the ridiculous Jordan media in a transparent logomachist game has been tumidly assuaging these events as “common criminals” with RPGs, high-powered machine guns, and IEDs.
In July of last year, a Jerash man was caught with approximately 40 kilos of explosives intending to bomb masjids across the Hashemite Kingdom. 2015 has reigned in a higher concern for explosive ordinance landing in northern Jordan from Syria and has witnessed more attacks on security personnel, while Daesh has ceremoniously on occasions taken pictures of itself at Jordan’s border in Syria.[52]
In March this year, security forces exchanged gunfire with Daesh in the city of Irbid, for the first time in decades.[53] Within the last three months, Daesh used an explosive laden vehicle to attack the borders of Jordan and Syria and the Jordanian government arrested a Daesh cell in Southern Jordan. However, a few journalists are reporting they are actually arresting ISIS cells weekly in media blackout silence. And unlike the December 2015 terrorist plot to kill GID agents in Al Rusayfah, five GID agents were actually killed in Baqaa Palestinian refugee camp last month.[54] 2015 and 2016 represents a huge spike in numbers and frequency of Daesh activities in Jordan in juxtaposition with the past, which culminates in the deserved query by Michael Rubin in Commentary Magazine “Is ISIS Targeting Jordan?”, in which he justifiably concludes that “ISIS has kept its powder dry with regard to Jordan, but that may be coming to an end.”[55]
Conclusion
The security situation in the Hashemite Kingdom has severely deteriorated within my five-year stay in the country. A large cusp of the conundrum, based upon my research and experience, derives from the reprobate GID with which the prating King Abdullah II has close relations. Its murky human rights record places an apartheid wall of distrust and bitterness between the fearful population and itself, resulting in what even the US Department of State capitulates as a consensus of the “citizen’s inability to change their government peacefully.”[56] Without peaceful means, a people will resort to asperity violence inevitably.
Additionally, the GID’s guillotine choke on journalistic rights thwarts the ability for the average Samaritan to participate in remedying the problems every society throughout history experiences. Instead, it destroys the trust between the former and latter, while simultaneously augmenting apathy among citizens. Great journalism of the past includes such examples as Harper’s WeeklyThomas Nast ridding New York of corruption, Charles Duhigg of the New York Times ascertaining a 25 percent raise for exploited Apple iPhone workers in China, Alan Judd of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution exposing and stopping cheating on exams across the United States, etc.[57] Such wheels of change aren’t turning in consequence to the GID.
Thirdly, the doctrinaire GID’s illusion of democracy—by controlling every aspect of society—augments obsequiousness and betrayal while atrophying creativity and talent. Those with traits of the former are promoted and those blessed with the latter, are punished and become pariahs. This is not beneficial for any society. It also creates a status quo wherein democratic ideals are not sincerely embraced by the people, but manipulated and vitiated for an individual’s own selfish ends.
Next, the GID’s participation in and phlegmatic winking at the corruption within the Hashemite Kingdom is enabling the Muslim Brotherhood and extremist groups to become more popular, thus presenting a considerable challenge which likely will implode soon. Corruption is a benchmark for the overthrow of many dictators throughout history. Jordan is not immune.
Finally, the mirage of the GID’s valuable intelligence gathering is unworthy of all its hyperbolic praise. If Saad “Pasha” Kheir was as good as Ignatius lauded, he’s dead, and it’s clear that there isn’t one like him today. I have to concur with Nathan Hodge on Ignatius: “we need journalists and columnists who are willing to probe deep, and present uncomfortable truths. Too bad in Ignatius we’ve got a stenographer to power, instead.”[58] Worse, the GID is a questionable ally, both untrustworthy and often a false paladin mistaken in its information. The GID’s HUMANINT efficacy is best summarized by writer Mohammed I. Aslam in Foreign Policy Journal: “some of their [GID] terrorism-related assessments have been found to be something akin to a dog’s breakfast of unsupported and politically motivated accusations.”[59]
The GID’s Stalin hale grip over Jordanian society has temporarily stymied insurgency, which has more to do with exporting terrorists, but it has failed for a decade to change the US State Department’s descant classification of Jordan as a high risk nation for terrorism, while the security situation has been slowly deteriorating. The answer to the question of “Why?” is that the GID is its own worst enemy. It refuses to correct the above criticisms, always citing security concerns of sedition as immunity, when the above criticisms are absolutely inseparable from the security of the Hashemite Kingdom.
Either the Mukhaabaraat is a Bucephalus trotting toward a precipice because a panjandrum King Abdullah II is no Alexander, or that Alexander is in reality a narcissistically blind midget Napoleon acting the beautiful role of a potentate Baghdad Bob, deceiving the entire international community. I am inclined to opine the latter. As one former GID confided to me once paraphrase, “Nothing happens in the Kingdom without our King’s approval.” I also disagree with Shane Harris’ depiction of the GID as a mouse that roars. First, I’ve never known of such possibility. Second, I witnessed many rats in my time within the gallimaufry of Jordan, but heard no roars. There were a lot of terrorists and terrorist sympathizers there though, and that includes a snake pit of them within the GID. All the friendly and tough mice must have been already swallowed when I arrived in Jordan five years ago. Although Jordan is the better of many Arab nations, I am with Michael Rubin ofCommentary Magazine; it’s about to get worse in the Hashemite Kingdom … and quickly. Since the King spends most of his time on a plane outside of Jordan, he shouldn’t fret. I’m just sincerely concerned for the good people I’ve met there.
References
[1] Shane Harris, “The Mouse that Roars”, Foreign Policy, September 12, 2014,http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/09/12/the-mouse-that-roars/.
[2] David Ignatius, “Tragedy as Impetus in Jordan”, Washington Post, November 15, 2005,http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/15/AR2005111501318.html.
[3] Joshua Landis, “The US Love-Hate Relationship with the Mukhabarat”, JoshuaLandis.com, December 13, 2009, http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/the-us-love-hate-relationship-with-mukhabarat/.
[4] Curtis Ryan, “Security Dilemmas and the Security State Question in Jordan”, Project on Middle East Political Science, December 29, 2014, http://pomeps.org/2014/12/29/security-dilemmas-and-the-security-state-question-in-jordan/ .
[5] Amy Davidson, “Torturing the Wrong Man”, The New Yorker, December 13, 2012,http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/torturing-the-wrong-man.
[6] “Jordan: Investigate Alleged Torture”, Human Rights Watch, November 3, 2015,https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/11/03/jordan-investigate-alleged-torture.
[7] Siraj Davis, “The Grim Conditions of Jordan’s Immigration Detention Camps: Blatant Human Rights Violations”, Global Research Centre, April 8, 2016, http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-grim-conditions-of-jordans-immigration-detention-camps-blatant-human-rights-violations/5520571 .
[8] Mohammed I. Aslam, “Jordan’s Mukhabarat: Inside the Snakepit”, Foreign Policy Journal, August 3, 2011, http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2011/08/03/jordans-mukhabarat-inside-the-snakepit/.
[9] Willow Belden, “DiCaprio Film Glamorize’s Jordan’s Feared Spy Agency”, Christian Science Monitor, October 10, 2008, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2008/1010/p04s01-wome.html.
[10] Ali Younes , “Is Jordanian Intelligence Spying on Jordanian Citizens for NSA and CIA?”, The Arab Daily News, May 20, 2014, http://thearabdailynews.com/2014/05/20/jordanian-intelligence-spying-jordanian-citizens-nsa-cia/.
[11] “Brotherhood Member Released after Serving Six-Month Prison Term”, Jordan Times, February 2, 2015, http://www.jordantimes.com/news/local/brotherhood-member-released-after-serving-six-month-prison-term.
Nicholas Pelham, “Jordanian Blasphemy Verdict Shales the Free Press”, Christian Science Monitor,February 18, 2003, http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0218/p07s02-wome.html.
[12] “Jordan: Journalists Jailed for Website Posting”, Human Rights Watch, September 21, 2013,https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/09/21/jordan-journalists-jailed-website-posting.
Adam Sturrock, “Jordan Releases T.V. Anchor Arrested for Facebook Posts”, Global Journalist,November 5, 2015, http://globaljournalist.org/2015/11/jordan-releases-tv-anchor-arrested-for-facebook-posts/.
[13] “Jordan: Journalists, Writers Facing Terrorism Charges”, Human Rights Watch, July 15, 2015,https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/07/15/jordan-journalists-writers-facing-terrorism-charges.
[14] “International Free Expression Groups Call for an End to Internet Censorship in Jordan”,Reporters Without Borders, January 20, 2016, https://rsf.org/en/news/international-free-expression-groups-call-end-internet-censorship-jordan.
[15] “Jordan Deports American Pastor , Assistant’s Eviction Pending”, World Watch Monitor,November 14, 2014, https://www.worldwatchmonitor.org/2014/11/article_3476855.html/ .
[16] Judith Pies, Amirouche Nedjaa, “Media Landscapes in Transition: Perspectives from the Arab World”, Mena Media Monitoring, July 25, 2013,http://menamediamonitoring.com/en/2013/07/25/media-landscapes-in-transition-perspectives-from-the-arab-world/.
[17] Areej Abuqudairi, “Situation Grimmer than Ever for Jordan Press Freedom”, Al Jazeera, June 14, 2015, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/06/situation-grimmer-jordan-press-freedom-150609062800930.html
[18] Kristen Gillespie Demilio, “Choke Hold: How Jordan Tames Its Press”, Columbia Journalism Review, April 2008, http://www.cjr.org/feature/choke_hold.php.
[19] “Badge Behavior: Man Goes to File Complaint, Gets Arrested Instead”, Channel 7 News Miami, October 14, 2014, http://wsvn.com/news/badge-behavior-man-goes-to-file-complaint-gets-arrested-instead/.
[20] Rachel Avraham, “Facebook Page of Palestinian Peace Activist Ahmad Shahwan Shut Down”,Jerusalem Online, November 3, 2015, http://www.jerusalemonline.com/news/middle-east/the-arab-world/facebook-page-of-palestinian-peace-activist-ahmed-shahwan-shut-down-16896 .
Rachel Avraham, “Jordanian Activist Who Spoke Against Stabbing Jews Attacked in Canada”, November 16, 2015, http://www.jerusalemonline.com/news/middle-east/israel-and-the-middle-east/jordanian-activist-who-spoke-against-stabbing-jews-attacked-in-canada-17184.
[21] “Jordan”, Freedom House Report, 2015, https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2015/jordan.
[22] Jason Stern, “Mission Journal: Rise in Journalists Arrests Tarnishes Jordan’s Image as Reformist”,The Committee to Protect Journalists, March 22, 2016, https://cpj.org/blog/2016/03/mission-journal-rise-in-journalist-arrests-tarnish.php.
[23] Suha Phillip Ma’ayeh, “Jordanian Protest Group Sets Up Camp in Amman”, The National, March 25, 2011, http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/jordanian-protest-group-sets-up-camp-in-amman.
[24] E. George H. Joffe Jordan in Transition (London, H. Hurst and Co Publishers, 2002), 120-123.
[25] Neil MacFarquhar, “Heavy Hand of the Secret Police Impeding Reform in the Arab World”, New York Times, November 14, 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/14/world/middleeast/heavy-hand-of-the-secret-police-impeding-reform-in-arab-world.html.
[26] Neil MacFarquhar, “Heavy Hand of the Secret Police Impeding Reform in the Arab World”, New York Times, November 14, 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/14/world/middleeast/heavy-hand-of-the-secret-police-impeding-reform-in-arab-world.html.
[27] Ali Younes, “The American Citizen Gun Toting Jordanian MP”, Al Arabiya News, July 17, 2012,http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/07/17/226889.html.
[28] Katy Montoya, “Syrian Refugees Collectivizing in Jordan Becomes a Security Issue.”, Jadaliyya,February 20, 2015, http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/20911/syrian-refugees-collectivizing-in-jordan-becomes-a.
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