Jamal al Tahat is a Senior Advisor at DAWN and a longtime advocate for democratization in Jordan. Al Tahat worked as an instructor, researcher, and managing editor of the strategic journal (Istrategia Al-Ordun) at the Center for Strategic Studies at the Jordanian National Defense College.
On Sep. 24, the district administrator of Ain al-Basha, Dr. Hakem Al-Alawneh, invoked the Crime Prevention Law—a relic of the British Mandate era—to silence Professor Yousef Rababa'a, a respected scholar of Arabic literature and head of his university staff club. In doing so, al-Alawneh exposed the hollowness of Jordanian King Abdullah II's much-publicized "vision of political modernization." The decision marks yet another attempt by the authorities to stifle basic civil liberties widely accepted and defended in democratic societies, adding a new stain on King Abdullah's rule and Jordan's slow descent away from an already flawed democracy.
Rababa'a's "crime" was posting critical views on Facebook, echoed in some media outlets, about higher education in Jordan. He was summoned by Al-Alawneh and forced to sign a pledge not to write about universities. The message was clear: The authorities would not tolerate public dissent, no matter how minor.
Unfortunately, Rababa'a is only one case among hundreds of intellectuals and peaceful political activists who have been detained to silence their views. Members of the Teachers' Syndicate Council experienced a similar situation on March 29, 2022, when police—acting on orders from the Amman Governor, Yaser Al Adwan—arrested dozens of teachers to stop them from peacefully demonstrating in front of the Jordanian Parliament. Notably, one of those detained, Dr. Naser Al Nawasrah, was later elected to serve in the current Parliament.
"It is not only economic hardship or regional instability that threatens Jordan's future, but also its failure to modernize its legal and institutional tools to match this changing society."
- Jamal Al Tahat
Originally enacted under British rule in 1927, amended in 1933 and maintained in its 1954 form since, the Crime Prevention Law has become a central tool of political control under Abdullah II. According to a 2025 report by the National Center for Human Rights (NCHR), more than 57,000 Jordanians were detained under this law in 2023 and 2024 alone. Lawyer Asem al-Omari, from the Jordanian National Forum for Freedoms, told Democracy in Exile that hundreds of educated citizens—academics, teachers, writers and students—are among those targeted by governors wielding this draconian authority.
Yet the law flagrantly contradicts the Jordanian Constitution, the Criminal Procedure Code and basic human rights principles outlined in international law. Most glaringly, Article 3 allows district administrators and governors to detain individuals indefinitely—even after courts have ordered their release.
Article 10 of the Constitution declares that "homes are sacred," permitting entry only under conditions defined by law and within such constitutional bounds. Similarly, Article 81 of the Criminal Procedure Code allows searches only after a crime has occurred and under authorization from a public prosecutor. Yet, Article 3 of the Crime Prevention Law empowers administrators to detain "anyone found in a public or private place under circumstances that convince the district administrator that he was about to commit a crime."
In practice, this means any Jordanian could be arrested in their home—not for committing a crime, but for a bureaucrat's suspicion that they might do so. The logic evokes Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report," where citizens are punished for "pre-crimes." Even the British colonial authorities who introduced this law applied it more cautiously when suppressing educated voices or political dissent.
Another alarming dimension is the power the law grants to administrative officials over the judiciary. In 2024 alone, governors ignored court rulings and refused to release individuals in 1,495 cases, according to Interior Minister Mazin al-Farrayeh. He defended the practice by citing rare cases of "parental abuse," an argument that cynically exploits exceptional moral taboos to justify systematic repression.
"Jordan's continued reliance on this Mandate-era law exposes a deep crisis of governance."
- Jamal Al Tahat
The final clause in Article 3 of the Crime Prevention Law authorizes district administrators to arrest individuals whose "continued freedom…poses a danger to the public" or to force them into a written commitment with a financial guarantee in case of breach, essentially agreeing to cease their activity under threat of massive fines. This vague and expansive wording stands in clear violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which guarantees the right to personal liberty and due process. Article 9 of the UDHR explicitly states that "no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile," while Article 10 affirms that "everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal." A nearly identical guarantee appears in Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which reiterates that "no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention."
Jordan has endorsed both the UDHR and the ICCPR, and its constitution mirrors these protections: Article 8 prohibits arrest or detention except in accordance with the law and judicial oversight. Yet despite these binding legal and constitutional commitments, King Abdullah II—who frequently presents himself as a champion of political modernity—continues to uphold the Crime Prevention Law as a core governing instrument inherited from the British Mandate. The persistence of this law, and its use to detain peaceful political activists outside judicial frameworks, signals that the regime has opted to preserve colonial-era tools of control rather than embrace the legal and institutional reforms needed for genuine political modernization.
Jordan's continued reliance on this Mandate-era law exposes a deep crisis of governance. The regime refuses to heed repeated calls from the NCHR, including those in its 2023 annual report that criticized the law's role in facilitating arbitrary detention and called for its appeal. It has also rejects criticism from other international human rights organizations. These actions, and the law more broadly, demonstrate how far Jordan remains from a true democracy underpinned by a values-based rule of law system that protects basic civil liberties.
King Abdullah's rhetoric regarding his "vision of political modernization" rings hollow when the system's foundations rest on colonial-era instruments of control. The gap is widening between an authoritarian legal framework that relies on outdated colonial instruments and a society that has rapidly evolved in education, communication and political awareness.
Indeed, it is not only economic hardship or regional instability that threatens Jordan's future, but also its failure to modernize its legal and institutional tools to match this changing society. Unless this structural stagnation is addressed, Jordan risks becoming another tragic example of a Middle Eastern state undone by its refusal to adapt. Ignoring the stark contradiction between King Abdullah's promises and practices risks becoming a new form of complicity with autocracy and poor governance, which festers all socio-political illnesses and extremism in the Arab World.
