Jordan Times
Monday, August 28, 2006
MPs pass anti-terror draft law
AMMAN (JT) — The Lower House on Sunday passed the anti-terrorism draft law
despite objections by opposition deputies, led by Islamist MPs, that it violated
human rights.
Under the bill, authorities can detain terror suspects, freeze their financial
assets, bar them from travelling and place them under tight surveillance.
According to the draft law, direct or indirect funding of a terrorist group is
an act of terror and recruiting people for domestic or foreign terror networks
is a terrorist action. Article 5, under which suspects can be detained for up to
four weeks, was scrapped by MPs because it existed in other provisions in the
anti-terror bill as well as other laws, including the Penal Code. Islamist
Deputy Zuheir Abul Ragheb was quoted by Reuters as saying that the draft law
“gives security forces wider extrajudicial powers to detain security suspects
and prosecute them in illegal military courts”.
The government introduced the new bill to tighten current laws after the
November 9 suicide bombings that killed 60 people, saying it was necessary to
safeguard national security. Independent lawmaker Mahmoud Kharabsheh told the
Associated Press that the draft law “is a clear violation of public law and
human rights”. “People shouldn’t be detained simply because they are suspected
of wrongdoing.”