(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Information Minister Taleb Rifai, RSF protested the ban on the weekly “Al Hadath”. RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard asked the minister to “reverse this decision.” “It seems that this measure once again punishes the editor-in-chief of this weekly, Nidal Mansour, who is strongly committed to the defence of press freedom. […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Information Minister Taleb Rifai, RSF protested the ban on the weekly “Al Hadath”. RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard asked the minister to “reverse this decision.” “It seems that this measure once again punishes the editor-in-chief of this weekly, Nidal Mansour, who is strongly committed to the defence of press freedom. It’s a pity that Jordan, which is known to be one of the most respectful countries in the Arab world as far as press freedom is concerned, takes this kind of measure,” he added. RSF previously protested Mansour’s expulsion from the Jordanian Journalists’ Union in a 7 September 2000 letter to the president of the union.
According to information collected by RSF, on 12 December, Information Minister Rifai ordered the ban on the weekly “Al Hadath” until editor-in-chief Mansour is replaced. Mansour, who is also the president of the Center for Defending Journalists’ Freedom, was expelled for life from the Jordanian Journalists’ Union for “receiving foreign aid [for his organisation], thus violating Jordanian law”. This decision prevents him from ever practicing his profession again because membership to the union is compulsory for journalists. According to the French news agency Agence France Presse, the minister justified his decision by explaining that “the newspaper can no longer be published since there is no editor-in-chief.”
