Director General of the Media Commission, Bashir Momani, said that the Cybercrime Law was introduced to regulate and confront crimes in the digital public space, due to the doubling number of cybercrimes, which required the intervention of the Jordanian legislative system to approve the law after careful scientific and field studies, to include all crimes against persons and money.

Speaking to a dialogue session held in Irbid Governorate on Tuesday, Momani added that the high rate of digital violence on social media sites was one of the motivations for issuing the Cybercrime Law, and that many Jordanians were reluctant to express their opinion on many issues for fear of bullying and hate speech that they may be exposed to, which the law faced firmly, hence enhancing the ability to free expression, especially among politicians and intellectuals.

In civilizational approaches, Momani pointed out that thousands of events were organized in which Jordanians freely expressed their solidarity with the humanitarian
issue in Gaza, while the Western model suppressed freedom of expression for political reasons.

“So we cannot accept a model that invokes politics in a humanitarian issue, while Jordan is criticized in the human rights file because of its position rejecting what violates or hurts religions or promotes homosexuality, so the idea of freedom and right is different and must take into account civilizational differences and not impose Western standards on our Arab societies, especially in the digital space, technology, and modern applications,” Momani added.

Regarding the criticism of the law, Momani pointed out that political elites can put the cybercrime law on their electoral programs, but they must show society what the alternative to the text they criticize is and provide recommendations and proposals to improve the law in this regard.

He noted some of the positive effects of the law on media freedoms.

Source: Jordan News Agency