New York, February 19, 2008
H.E. Salah al-Bashir
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
Your Excellency,
We read with interest your detailed reply to our World Report 2008 chapter detailing major human rights related developments in 2007. Your reply, and in particular the detail you provide, are amongst the most productive governmental correspondence Human Rights Watch has received in response to our reporting. We trust this marks the seriousness with which Jordan is treating the protection of human rights, and hope this approach will allow for genuine discussion of contentious areas.
We wish to make several points in response to your comments. As a preliminary matter, we should point out that our cutoff point for factual updates of our World Report is early November, due to production timelines. We were thus unable to include the important amendment of the penal code’s article 208 that now establishes torture and ill-treatment of detainees as a crime in Jordan and provided information available at that time regarding permission by independent monitors to enter polling centers.
We followed the government’s own figures on protective custody, referenced in their combined third and fourth periodic report to the UN CEDAW on March 10, 2006. In this report, the government states that the “cumulative yearly total numbers of women placed in protective custody between 1997 and 2004 ranged between 400 and 800.” During a visit to Juwaida in late October 2007—too late for inclusion in the World Report—we found 73 women in administrative detention, of which the government only classified 5 as being in protective custody. However, some of the remaining administrative detainees were detained in circumstances similar to those of women being held for their own protection.
Regarding arbitrary arrests, due process and torture:
As an initial matter, we remain concerned about the continued arbitrary detention of Isam al-‘Utaibi (Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi) at the General Intelligence Department (GID). In a decision made public on January 8, 2008, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that “the deprivation of liberty of Mr. Issam Mohamed Tahar Barqaoui Al Uteibi is arbitrary” yet he remains imprisoned in solitary confinement without trial for a period that now exceeds three years. On Friday, February 15, 2008, the GID prevented his relatives from visiting al-‘Utaibi who has been on a hungerstrike since February 4 in protest at his indefinite detention. Al-‘Utaibi’s continued detention comes despite reported promises to release him and runs counter to Jordan’s progress in January 2008 in addressing the problem of two other long-term detainees held without trial.
Your assertion that no one is arrested in Jordan without an arrest warrant is not one we can accept, based on interviews with more than one hundred current and former detainees who assert that the arresting authorities never presented such a warrant. It is possible, of course, that such warrants existed, but were not shown. In that case, the guarantee that the warrant presents against arbitrary arrest would be void, since the warrant could have been written after the arrest had taken place. Furthermore, in Jordan, prosecutors, not independent judicial officers, as international human rights standards require, adjudicate on the legality of a person’s detention and remand detainees in custody, removing another layer of protection. During our interviews with Jordanian prosecutors, they were unable to describe what evidentiary standard, if any, they applied to issuing an arrest warrant. Thus an arrest warrant might be issued on very weak evidence.
In addition, in none of the cases of administrative detainees that we have investigated, was the detainee arrested pursuant to arrest warrants.
The problem of arrests on the basis of very weak evidence and spurious charges is particularly acute at the GID. You assert that detainees there are lawfully detained. However, international law requires a detainee to be informed of the reason for his or her detention, to be informed promptly of any charges against him or her, and to be granted communication with the outside world. Despite this, one person we met with in August 2007 during Human Rights Watch’s visit to the GID detention facility did not know where he was. Another detainee did not know what the charges against him were. When Human Rights Watch informed him, he reacted with profound shock. The arrest of a third person was not apparently related to a national security case at all, but resulted from a complaint by a mother suspicious of her daughter’s dating activities.
Effective access to lawyers for GID detainees could help alleviate the problem of arbitrary arrests. We refer you to our letter of December 4, 2007 to Prime Minister Nader Dahabi, regarding the arbitrary detention of Isam al-‘Utaibi, for examples of the obstacles the GID and the military prosecutors impose on detainees to appoint and meet their lawyers. The denial of legal representation in al-‘Utaibi’s case was not an isolated experience for those detained at the GID. Another detainee there demanded to see his lawyer, but was denied access. The six members of Islamic Action Front detained at the time of Human Rights Watch’s visit had also not been able to see their lawyers for a lengthy period of time.
We commend the GID on its increased openness to visits by human rights groups. Such visits seem especially appropriate since the 35 judicial inspections you mention have not been effective in ensuring the laws are fully being implemented. One such inspector Human Rights Watch spoke with admitted that he does not spend time alone with the detainees to hear complaints during tours of inspection, but instead primarily asked the director of the detention facility about any complaints by detainees. Such “inspections” cannot detect abuse.
We did find ill-treatment of detainees during our visit to the GID in August 2007, including illegal threats of lifelong detention made by GID interrogators to detainees, threats of summary deportation, degrading detainees by forcing them to imitate animal behavior, and threats of violence and harm to family members. A systemic problem is the routine solitary confinement of detainees at the GID. If detention at the GID is subject to the Law on Correctional and Rehabilitation Centers, as you and GID officials assert, solitary confinement would be limited to seven days, not the months and years that some detainees currently face.
We are eager to learn about the accomplishments of the new unit in the Public Security Directorate (PSD) established to hear complaints of inmates and pursue prosecutions against accused officers. We have not yet received the statistics and details about the prosecution of PSD officials that the Ministry of Interior’s Secretary-General promised us in October 2007. Our follow-up with the PSD in 2007 regarding judicial procedures in individual cases of torture that we had documented, but not yet publicized, did not inspire confidence that the Judicial Affairs department in the PSD was vigorously pursuing accountability. The PSD appeared to be dragging its investigation into two cases of torture and did not respond to one other case of alleged torture Human Rights Watch sent to the Jordanian authorities.
Regarding Freedom of Expression, Assembly and Association:
We are interested to hear what progress the government has made in reviewing the penal code and revising articles in it that criminalize free speech. Contrary to your assertion, abolishing imprisonment for journalists in the press and publications law does not “once and for all” rule out the possibility of arrest for legitimate speech. Our World Report contained examples of imprisonment for legitimate speech.
You assert that meetings by political parties, NGOs, professional associations, and chambers of commerce, among others, do not require advance permission from the governor under the current repressive law. We would have included such information had the governor of Amman responded with such information to our letter of June 21, 2007 urging him to exempt NGOs from seeking advance permission for public meetings. However, it appears that only meetings within the premises of such groups may be exempted by a special regulation. These groups’ public meetings, for example in rented hotel facilities, still require advance permission from the governor.
We also refer you to Human Rights Watch’s December 2007 report, “Shutting Out the Critics.” Cases documented there demonstrate that the governor’s refusal to grant NGOs or other groups permission to hold public meetings was not based on concerns for the security and safety of persons and property, as you claim. You are informing us for the first time that a governor’s refusal can be judicially challenged. To assess the effectiveness of such challenges, please provide us with the legal basis that allows such a challenge, and all court cases of such challenges since June 2001, their outcomes, the reasoning of the court in upholding or rejecting the refusal, and the arguments the governors put forward in justifying their decision to deny permission.
For reasons of timing explained above, we were unable to commend the government regarding Prime Minister Nader Dahabi’s promise of January 8 to amend the Law of Public Gatherings, and to withdraw from parliamentary consideration the draft Law on Charitable Societies. We look forward to seeing new draft laws that would protect the right to assembly and association. We hope that a revised law will protect the independence of non-governmental organizations and prevent repeats of the government takeover in 2006 of two large NGOs, the General Union of Voluntary Societies and the Islamic Center Society. These takeovers went far beyond any action warranted by a judicial inquiry into individual administrative and financial wrongdoing.
Regarding Iraqi refugees:
Lastly, Human Rights Watch wishes to assure the government of its recognition that Jordan has shouldered over many years a disproportionate burden by hosting large numbers of Iraqi refugees. We continue to urge the United States, Britain and other European Union member states, and Jordan’s southern neighbors to take more Iraqi refugees and to support Jordan financially.
But we criticize policies such as denying Iraqis in Jordan refugee status, effectively closing its borders to asylum seekers, and, at various times over the past two years, providing only halting cooperation to efforts by the international community to assist Iraqi refugees in Jordan. The effect of Jordan’s policies, coupled with those of Western countries preferring to provide financial aid to accepting adequate numbers of refugees themselves, is to turn Iraqis fleeing for their lives into bargaining chips between Jordan and the U.S. and U.K. We call for Jordan to adhere to international refugee law by admitting and protecting refugees with genuine asylum claims, regardless of their visa status.
We thank you for your attention to these matters, and look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
/s
Kenneth Roth
Executive Director
Human Rights Watch
Cc: H.E. Nasser Judeh, Deputizing Minister of Foreign Affairs
Ibrahim Awawda, Director, Human Rights and Human Security Department
