In a surprise move only two weeks after promises to the contrary, the Jordanian government ordered three local Internet service providers to shut down nearly 300 news websites that have not been licensed by the government-run Press and Publications Department.

The decision ordered midday June 2 followed 10 months of promises by the government and the royal court that the controversial law ordering the owners of any website that deals with news and commentary about Jordan to be licensed. The order does not include web giants such as Facebook, Twitter, Google or Yahoo.

The controversy over the press and publications law began when the Fayez Tarawneh government de facto rejected a media strategy prepared by a royal-appointed committee under the government that preceded him. The national media strategy said that the optimum way to deal with the mushrooming of news websites was to train, self-regulate and create a website registry. The idea of a registry was meant to overcome situations where victims are unable to identify the owners of websites that were publishing slander. Owners of websites welcomed the recommendations but the government did not, leading to the resignation of the committee’s head former editor of Al-Arab Al-Yawm and government spokesman Taher Udwan. Independent-minded Udwan was replaced by pro-government spokesman Samih Mayta. The Tarawneh government pressed parliament into amending the press and publications law to demand that sites with news about Jordan must be licensed, must have an editor from the country’s closed-shop journalist union and both owners and editors must be responsible for all content including web comments. The law was railroaded in parliament. At one time, parliament Speaker Abdel Karim Dughmi headed the parliament’s national guidance subcommittee to ensure it quickly cleared the committee.

Fall 2012 turned into a major protest by owners of news websites. A coalition was quickly developed, a protest tent was set up and website owners declared an electronic civil disobedience vowing not to accept the governmental licensing scheme.