AMMAN, Jordan – On Sep. 27, three Jordanians were arrested for putting up posters of a black hand with four fingers raised against a yellow background. The hand symbolizes R4BIA, a solidarity movement in support of the hundreds of backers of deposed Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi who were killed outside Cairo’s Rabia al-Adawiya Mosque in August by security forces.

Jordan’s State Security Court (SSC) will try Humam Kafeesha, Ayman al-Bahrawi and Diaa al-Din, all under 25 years of age, for harming national relations with a foreign state. They face at least five years in prison if convicted. Police also charged Bahrawi with insulting a foreign political leader after finding WhatsApp messages on his mobile criticizing King Abdullah II, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Egypt's General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Morsi’s fall in Egypt came at a moment of weakness for the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, where Islamists are the main political opposition. The R4BIA arrests represent just one aspect of a broader crackdown on dissent, Islamist and secular alike, especially if linked to neighboring countries.

King Abdullah, who once proclaimed that “the sky is the limit” of free expression in Jordan, has been praised for introducing constitutional changes and maintaining order through the tumult of the Arab Spring, but escalating regional turmoil has set the Hashemite kingdom on edge and set back the clock on reform.