Jordan Watch : Human Rights Watch's Private Crusade for Adnan Abu Odeh

Human Rights Watch has came strongly to lead a "free speech" crusade in favor of the poor, impoverished, underpreviliaged and discriminated -against Jordanian citizen Adnan Abu Odeh.

In a press release that acted as a propaganda for Abu Odeh rather than a decent analysis of the restrictions on press freedoms and freedom of expression in Jordan Human Rights Watch took the role of a defence laywer for Abu Odeh. Read the full press release here

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/11/07/jordan14529_txt.htm

Human Rights Watch should have focused more on the real problem of using Article 150 in the penal code to silence any expressions of opinion that goes against the government and also the dictatorship of the mass public opinion.

Article 150 was used more by the Islamic Action Front and other individual Islamists against writers and intellectuals like Jihad Momani, Musa Hawamdeh, Naser Qamash and Roman Haddad who all wrote articles touching the "high sensitivity" of the Islamists ideologies. In each of these cases HRW had never expressed the clear tendency to support the individuals under accusations.

The former intellectuals and writers were sentenced to prison, accused of blasphemy and even order to divorce their wives (Musa Hawamdeh).

The fight for freedom against rerstrictions should be a collective one. Article 150 should be abolished and more freedoms shall be guaranteed. If HRW wants to act positively it should focus on the issue not on the person, were it has overvictimised Abu Odeh even after the charges were dropped by none other than the state that was accused of halting Abu Odeh's freedom.

Human Rights Watch is a great organization with a non-compromising position on freedoms of expression but it should have been smart enough not to be manipulated by Abu Odeh. The charges were raised by a Jordanian citizen and then refused by the court. What the fuss is all about then?

Again I want to make sure that I am not against Abu Odeh since any person is free to be ignorant. My only concern is that the struggle for freedoms and social justice should not be limited to a certain cliam of discrimination but a nation-wide alliance for justice for all Jordanians of all origins and all backgrounds and naturaly all ideologies.