Following the recent Jordanian Cessation Court’s decision to subject electronic websites to the Press and Publication Law, the Jordanian web has been overflowing with reactions to the court ruling which many Jordanians see as a step back for freedom of speech in the country. Awen Al-Meshagbeh, writing for Mideast Youth, gives an example of the Jordanian governments’ treatment of an online writer, Mr. Salah Momani. Al-Meshagbeh has this to say about the governments’ various methods of censorship: Relying on a mix of indicators such as detentions, regulations, and intimidation to crush any peaceful and generally loyal opposition, the Jordanian regime has now emerged as one of the leading online and print media oppressors in the Middle East. This is evidenced by the outright and clear violation of the fundamental principles put forward by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) to measure a society’s tolerance of free speech; these principles include but are not limited to: governments’ use of filtering, monitoring, and regulation (Arab Times newspaper and its online version is an example); authorities’ use of imprisonments; and other forms of legal harassment to deter critical journalistic writing (Mr. Ahmed Al-Abbadi is another example). Parallel to these efforts, BamBam goes over the list of things that may no longer be discussed in the Jordanian web: Anything that goes against national responsibility Anything that goes against Human rights Anything the goes against islamic and arabic sensibilities Anything concerning the Jordanian armed forces or security apparatus unless otherwise authorized Anything ridiculing any of the religions or sects recognized by the constitution Anything that harms the national unity and incites on committing crimes Anything that promoted deviancy and corrupts morals Any information related to the secret session of the national council Any non-disclosed government documents To further illustrate the gravity of the court decision, Gaith Saqer over at Arab Crunch quotes Basil Okur, one of the founders of Ammon News, a Jordan top-ten site according to Alexa as saying that “according to the court order, a publication definition is any thing published, meaning anything circulating online: forums, Tweets, blog posts and comments, Facebook wall comments and email.” Other blogs, like La Sharaf Fil Jareemah (No Honour in Crime) which is dedicated to combating honour crimes in the country, takes part in the ongoing discussion of the new ruling by providing a list of relevant coverage of the news in myriad sources ranging from local and international news papers to news websites and blogs. Yet others only half-jokingly mock the new situation, take Kinzi for example, who writes: Guess I’ll have to keep most of my drafts unpublished, and that the ————— ooops, can’t go there. And the —– oops, can’t go there either. I hope complaining about local driving doesn’t fall into these categories. The general feel in the Jordanian blogosphere, however, seems to be one of defiance. Several bloggers are pushing for an active challenging of the court rule, like Razan Khatib who maintains that: amongst other freedoms we don’t enjoy in Jordan, this is something we actually know what it tastes like, something we love so dearly, we nurture and are leaders in our region because of it. So this time around, we will not let that freedom be taken away from us so very easily! Urdun Mubdi3 (Creative Jordan) contributor Zeid Abu-Odeh echos Khatib's sentiment, as he writes under the title “In Defence of Freedom of Speech and the Internet“: This is a golden opportunity for us all to fight together for a decent life. Let us make our voices heard for the whole world, and preferably in Arabic so we could be taken seriously for once. While several news websites are actively publishing stories about the new restrictive ruling, Naseem Tarawnah at The Black Iris advocates a thorough inspection of the new situation. He says in reference to recent reactions: Some are jumping to conclusions and some are launching various campaigns, and I just feel we don’t have the right information at this point, which in itself is a problem the Jordanian government has created – but that’s nothing new. In the meantime, Eyas Sharaiha's bilingual article on 7iber “Websites and Publication Law“ is an attempt at analysing the possible ramifications of said law. Sharaiha holds that: Extending anti-defamation laws to the internet is natural, and does happen in European countries and the United States (albeit with minor stipulations). It is based on the simple expectation that what you do in the “cyber world” is entailed by what you do in the “real world”.