Freedom is on the march--or is it?

Overview

Although Bush often proclaims that "Freedom is on the march" in the Middle East, there is evidence to the contrary, and that evidence indicates that the Iraq war is the problem.

A potential problem raised in the press conference

In his press conference, Bush was asked about a situation that could cause problems for the Burning Bush doctrine.

Q: Mr. President, let me take you up on that, if I may. Last month in Jordan, a gentleman named Ali Hatar was arrested after delivering a lecture called, "Why We Boycott America." He was charged under section 191 of their penal code for slander of government officials. He stood up for democracy, you might say. And I wonder if here and now, you will specifically condemn this abuse of human rights by a key American ally. And if you won't, sir, then what, in a practical sense, do your fine words mean?

THE PRESIDENT: I'm unaware of the case. You've asked me to comment on something that I didn't know took place. I urge my friend, His Majesty, to make sure that democracy continues to advance in Jordan. I noticed today that he put forth a reform that will help more people participate in future governments of Jordan. I appreciate His Majesty's understanding of the need for democracy to advance in the greater Middle East. We visited with him at the G8, and he has been a strong advocate of the advance of freedom and democracy.

Now, let me finish. Obviously, we're discussing a process. As I said in my speech, not every nation is going to immediately adopt America's vision of democracy, and I fully understand that. But we expect nations to adopt the values inherent in a democracy, which is human rights and human dignity, that every person matters and every person ought to have a voice. And His Majesty is making progress toward that goal.

I can't speak specifically to the case. You're asking me to speak about a case that I don't know the facts.

Q: Fair enough. If I could just follow up. Will you then -- does your inaugural address mean that when it comes to people like Mr. Hatar, you won't compromise because of a U.S. ally and you will stand --

THE PRESIDENT: Again, I don't know the facts, Terry. You're asking me to comment on something I do not know the facts. Perhaps you're accurate in your description of the facts, but I have not seen those facts. Now, nevertheless, we have spoken out in the past and we'll continue to speak out for human rights and human dignity, and the right for people to express themselves in the public square.

[NOTE: Some reports use "Hatar," and others "Hattar."] How smooth was that? George managed not to answer the question by saying he did not know anything about the arrest of Ali Hatar. This is a claim that I find dubious. According to this December 20, 2004, Reuters article, Hatar was arrested on December 19, one week after he gave his lecture "calling for a peaceful boycott of U.S. products in Jordan." That means Hatar gave his lecture just over six weeks before Bush's press conference and was arrested just over five weeks before the press conference. And George knew nothing about it? Yeah, right.

My doubt is not based merely on conjecture, however. As reported in the Washington Post, after the press conference Bush asked the State Department to get the U.S. embassy in Jordan to investigate the matter, but it turns out that

a senior State Department official said the embassy had been following the case and raising questions about it with the government. He said the incident and similar cases had already figured in the draft of the department's annual human rights report, scheduled to be released next month.

And still we are expected to believe that Bush had no knowledge about this incident? But wait, there's more. Reuters, the Washington Post, and Human Rights Watch describe Hatar as an engineer who is a member of a trade union, the professional association of engineers. The group (per the Post) "is among the most politically militant in the country," and its membership is largely of Palestinian descent. Hatar is also a member of the group's "Anti-Normalization Committee," which actively campaigns for Jordan to end relations with Israel. So we have a prominent anti-Israel activist who openly opposes a key U.S. policy, meaning that he poses a tangible threat to stability in the region. Given the importance of Israel in U.S. policy, I find it incredible that Bush knew absolutely nothing about the arrest of Ali Hatar. Do I have absolute proof? No, but my disbelief is based on facts.

Trying to find information on the Hatar case has been difficult, as there has been scant media coverage of it. For more information on that fact, check out this article from the Media Research Center.

A closer look at Jordan

Before proceeding with this analysis, I wish to make something clear. I am not arguing that the events in Jordan described herein are right or wrong, justified or unjustified. I am using these events to highlight the flaws in the Burning Bush doctrine. King Abdullah's father showed tremendous courage in taking a major step to establish peace in the Middle East--making peace and establishing official relations with Israel--and Abdullah inherited a very difficult situation upon his father's death. Nonetheless, the Jordanian actions discussed herein are without a doubt the very kinds of actions Bush described in his Inaugural Address.

According to Human Rights Watch, Hatar has been charged with violation of article 191 of the Jordanian Penal Code, which provides criminal penalties (up to two years in prison) for the “slander” of Jordanian government officials. The Washington Post reported that although the lecture did not mention the Jordanian government, in a question and answer period after the lecture, Hatar "used Jordan as an example of developing countries buying U.S. weapons for use against 'their own people.'" Ostensibly, then, Hatar was not arrested for giving an anti-American speech, but for criticizing his own government. From the express words Bush used in his Inaugural Address, Hatar is exactly the kind of person Bush said America would support. In case you might have forgotten, Bush said "America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains" and "America's belief in human dignity will guide our policies, yet rights...are secured by free dissent[.]" And yet, Bush has done nothing as of yet (unless one considers telling the State Department to do something it had already done as "doing something").

Regarding the Hatar case, Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division, said

Yet again, the Jordanian government is using the vague wording of its penal code to crack down on free speech. These charges fly in the face of the government’s pledges to reform the political system and protect basic freedoms for Jordanian citizens.

There have been similar arrests in Jordan in the last year. From the Human Rights Watch report:

Jordanian officials have used criminal defamation laws to censor writers in the past. In May of this year, police officials detained Fahd al-Rimawi, editor of the weekly Al-Majd newspaper, for three days, and charged him with violating Article 118 of the Penal Code for “harming relations with a brotherly country,” in that case, Saudi Arabia.

Reuters described other arrests as follows:

Among those detained in recent weeks is Jamil Abu Bakr, a senior member of the Islamic Action Front (IAF), the country's largest political party. It has a vocal voice in a parliament dominated by pro-government deputies.

Another former Islamist deputy, Sheikh Anees Deeb, was interrogated after his religious lessons in a mosque were deemed by authorities to whip up anti-U.S. sentiment that could encourage violence, they added.

"Tens have been arrested in the last two weeks and many were released. I cannot understand what the justification is for these arrests and under what law. They want to silence people over what's happening in Iraq and Palestine," Sheikh Hamza Mansour, head of the IAF, told Reuters.

"The authorities have lost their patience and every time someone utters a word they shut him down by arresting him."

*******

Interior ministry officials told Reuters several Muslim clerics had been arrested for violating a law that forbids unlicensed sermons. Officials deny security forces arrest anyone merely for holding anti-government views.

The Washington Post reported that

In September, Interior Ministry agents arrested 38 men across the country, some of them during midnight raids on private homes. Those detained, including former government ministers and members of parliament, were associated with the country's Islamic movement, which has been gaining popularity in Jordan and across the region.

The Jordanian government, long among the most tolerant in the Middle East, said at the time that the men were arrested for slandering the monarchy and preaching in mosques without a government license.

To my knowledge, the Bush administration has said nothing about these arrests. Will he say something in the future? My guess is "no," and if that is the case, Bush will once again be exposed as hypocrite.

As Human Rights Watch's Whitson said, “Jordanians should be free to speak out on public issues without threat of government persecution The current laws don’t let them.”

How does Iraq affect this situation?

The BBC's Jon Leyne summarized the democratic reform process in Jordan thusly:

Jordan was meant to be a showpiece for democracy - an example of the sort of reform the Americans would like to see happening across the region.

Instead, the process of reform has stalled. If anything the king is acquiring more power.

What does Iraq have to do with any of this? A presentation on January 27, 2005, by Shirley Gordon on BBC radio's World Service provided some answers. Gordon noted that when King Abdullah spoke at the opening of Jordan's parliament in December, he said that security was now his top priority. Next she presented this explanation from Saad Hattar of the BBC Arabic Service:

The regional upheavals in Iraq and in Palestine are hampering the democratic path as authorities are saying because security should be maintained, and the authorities in Jordan are afraid of possible infiltration of extremist elements from Iraq, from Syria, (and) also from the Palestinian territories...and this put the democratic process on the back burner in favor of upholding this security as the prime interest of the leadership at the current time.

Gordon's conclusion was that "in Jordan at least the current situation in Iraq appears to have stalled democratic developments rather than encouraging them." The presentation also included this analysis from Samer Shehata of The Center for Arab Studies at Georgetown University:

There has been a lot of protest and activity and organization by political and civil society groups against the Iraq war and against the continuing occupation in countries like Jordan and Egypt and even in the Gulf countries, and the security forces, of course, of these regimes have had to put some of these demostrations down, and in some cases be somewhat heavy-handed toward some of these organizations and political parties, and that certainly also is a step backwards or away from democracy. So the Iraq war has played a part in this story of democracy in the Middle East and so on, but not in the way some of us, or at least the Bush administration had expected.

(emphasis added). In other words, the Iraq war has had a negative impact on "freedom's march" in Jordan and elsewhere in the Middle East. But we can all take comfort in the fact that George has "planted the flag of Liberty" and "cast an anchor out in the future."