Things to say about being detained/imprisoned in Jordan

In The Black Iris today, Nas gave a good point about the case of human rights in Jordan. Personally, I believe that Capital punishment should be eliminated unless there were indisputable evidence or unforced confessions. I also think that 10 years should be given before the execution to give time for any further developments and that judges should investigate whether confessions were made under torture or not.

Regarding the issue of torture and miss-treatment for prisoners and detainees I think that the country did take few good steps towards fixing the problem. The most comprehensive coverage is given by Amnesty International and Amman Center for Human Rights Studies. The later has a very detailed account on the problem and the steps taken to fix it, few steps are:

1- Building new prisons that are more adequate. This point was kinda surprising for the authors since "the building structures in most prisons appeared adequate, with the exception of Juwaida and parts of Qafqafa, and sanitary facilities." So instead of fixing a small problem, our Gov. decided to build things from scratch hmmm...

2- One new prison is going to be a Super-maximum security prison (in Muaqqar). These became trendy in the US starting from the 80's and human rights organizations have many issues with them. But I guess it's a step to separate dangerous prisoners from other less-violent detainees...Don't be so sure since the Secretary-General of the Ministry of Interior Mukhaimer Abu Jammous said that this prison is for certain crimes, not for certain criminal natures...After concerns being made, the gov. stated that this facility will be used only for violent criminals. I wonder if we will start seeing criminals in orange suits.

These reports are lacking one crucial point; They didn't tackle the claimed torture during crime investigations in police departments and other security services. In that field I can say that the General Intelligence Department (GID) had taken few referendums in it's ways and they are trying to come back from a notorious reputation. I had a friend that got arrested by them and spent 4 days in their hospitality. He was satisfied with the treatment he got: He had his own cell, own clean bathroom, meals on time, he had his holly book and they told him that he can fast if he wants and they would cut his breakfast and lunch and give him a double dinner at breakfast time! Now that's impressive. He seemed by far less happy about the following days in "Preventive Security" cells where he reported torture and the few days he ahd to spend in Al-Jafer (which is closed now). A relative of mine reported on his visit to the GID by saying: "it was something close to a job interview". Few questions about some people he knew and then off you go.

To sum things up. I think that Jordan did take few good steps in this historic soar thumb to our image as a modern civilized country. Further processing must be demand and monitored, especially on issues regarding detention.