Jordan: Big Brother is Watching You!

Jordanian netizens had a rude awakening when news surfaced about the sentencing of Imad Al-Ash to two years in prison - for insulting the Jordanian monarch in an instant message (IM) he had sent to a friend. The computer engineering student was allegedly detained and tortured for five months before the state security court heard his case. Jordanian bloggers have their say here.

Naseem Al Tarawnah says the charge is so “dangerous that it's not even funny.”

He adds:

First, the fact that it’s the 21st century and Jordanians are still being tried for lese majeste - a law so archaic that it begs to reason why any nation would dare continue to use it and still promote itself as progressive - is beyond me. If anything, this is one of those laws that world history has proven to be pretty damn useless and ineffective. It doesn’t stop people from insulting the country’s ruler, in fact it encourages critics to do so (as is the case in Morocco these days), and more over, it solidifies the idea that one lives in an authoritarian state.