On this page, you will find:
To find organisations working for LGBTQI+ rights, visit our Jordan LGBTQI+ Resources page.
To find organisations providing legal or other types of assistance to refugees in Jordan, visit our Jordan Legal Assistance page.
COI Experts
Email: arg1@compuserve.com
Dr George is a consultant, writer and journalist, with extensive knowledge of the Middle East. Since 1984 he has worked as a freelance journalist, researcher and expert witness in political asylum cases involving the Middle East. He frequently commentates on Middle Eastern affairs for radio and television and contributes to the Observer, the Independent and the Guardian. He is a former Head of Research at the Arab-British Chamber of Commerce and a former Assistant Director of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding (CAABU). Since 2003, Dr George has acted as an Expert Witness for UK, US and European asylum and immigration tribunals, dealing with cases involving Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories and has produced some 4,000 reports.
Tel: +44 20 76 04 30 27
Email: email@georgejoffe.com / Skype: george.joffe
Professor Joffé is prepared to provide country of origin experts witness statements for Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. He is now retired but is still affiliated to the London Middle East Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Until 2017, Professor Joffé was an affiliated lecturer at the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) in the University of Cambridge, where he also ran the Centre for North African Studies. From 2005 to 2010, he was a research fellow at the Centre of Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford. From 1997 to 2000, Professor Joffé was the deputy director of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. He regularly addresses professional audiences at the NATO Defence College in Rome, the Geneva Centre for Security Policy in Geneva, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry and NOREF in Oslo and the Royal College of Defence Studies in London. He has also advised the European Commission (DG Relex), EuropeAid and the new External Action Service.
Professor of Law, Pepperdine
Director, Pepperdine Asylum and Refugee Law Clinic
Tel.: +001 (310) 506-4416
Of Counsel, Wolfsdorf Immigration Law Group
Tel: (310) 570-4088
Email: bjejudge@aol.com
Judge Bruce J. Einhorn (ret.) was the primary draftsperson of the modern US law on asylum. He has worked to educate judges and conservative scholars on the maltreatment of gays and has done extensive research on Egypt, Saudi Arabia (e.g., gays and Shiites there), Syria, Yemen, and Jordan. In 2011 he lectured at Oxford University on the topic of anti-feminist actions from Islamic extremists, not all of whom are Muslim. Judge Einhorn is a member of the American Bar Association National Commission. He is Co-Chair of the ADL Latino-Jewish Roundtable of Greater Los Angeles, that covers issues such as immigration reform and the fight against nativism in the US.
Email: lubnadn@hotmail.com
Tel: +962 79 88 44 668 or +962 79 55 41 901
Skype: Lubna.dawany
Lubna Dawany is an attorney based in Amman, Jordan. Dawany is the founding member of human rights-based organisations, including, Mizan and Sisterhood Is Global Institute (SIGI), Jordan. She is also the founder of the Jordan Association for Protection from Family Violence. Dawany has developed expertise in honour crime through her extensive campaign and support work with women at risk of torture and honour murder. In 2017, she received an award from Shela Kar Organization in Beverly Hills, San Francisco for her work with women in danger in Jordan.
Email: rebwar@mideastconsultancy.com or info@mideastconsultancy.com
Dr Rebwar Fatah is the Director of the Middle East Consultancy Services. Dr Fatah has produced thousands of COI reports since he began working as an expert witness in 2000. In the past five years alone, Dr Fatah has produced 1,341 Expert Reports on the Middle East. These include:
- 830 Country Expert Reports
- 416 Document Authentication Reports
- 95 Nationality Reports
Dr Fatah’s reports have been commissioned for and cited in several immigration appeals, as well as family and criminal cases. Moreover, he has assessed many people from the Middle East whose nationality, native language, ethnicity, place of residence has been disputed, and has examined thousands of documents from the MENA region. In addition to a deep knowledge of the region’s administrative and bureaucratic cultures, Dr Fatah’s multilingual proficiencies enable him to understand, interpret and evaluate official documents in the Middle East. As a part of this work, Dr Fatah has produced his own methodology for document authentications and nationality examinations.
Dr Fatah has also provided written and oral evidence in court; among them are five Country Guidance Cases, two Turkish extradition orders and many other cases. Moreover, Dr Fatah has also reviewed and provided guidance on Home Office CPIN reports.
Dr Fatah regularly visits the Middle East, conducting fact-finding missions to ensure that his knowledge is up to date and based on reliable information. Dr Fatah speaks most of the Middle Eastern languages as well as their various dialects. Dr Fatah’s Country Expert Reports cover a wide range of issues, including the general security situation, sufficiency of protection, crimes of honour, healthcare, corruption, and at-risk groups of different sexual, religious, political and cultural profiles.
Email: ralkhouri@gmail.com
Tel: +962 77 99 95 000
Skype: riad.al.khouri
A Jordanian economist specializing in the Middle East & North Africa, Riad has for over forty years trained, lectured, advised, and researched on a wide variety of socio-economic and other topics such as good governance, migration (including refugees), foreign aid, human rights, post-crisis economies, strategic planning, cultural familiarization, conflict resolution, NGOs, and sustainable development. His mother tongue is Arabic, and he is also fluent in English, with a strong working knowledge of French. Riad lives in Jordan and is a leading expert on the country and MENA generally, working locally and around the region at all levels with numerous Jordanian and international organizations, and writing and publishing widely on the country as well as regionally.
Email: gabbay@muslimworldexpert.com
Dr Shaul Gabbay acts as a resource for immigration attorneys seeking advice, counsel and expert testimony in asylum cases. Formerly the Executive Director of the Institute for the Study of Israel in the Middle East at the University of Denver, he has published extensively on cultures and customs in all Muslim countries, persecution issues based on family dishonour, gender and homosexuality, and sociology and politics of the Muslim world. Professor Gabbay’s expertise helps immigration attorneys and judges understand key societal issues and trends in the Muslim world that have life-threatening repercussions for Muslim immigrants throughout the U.S. at risk of deportation. His oral testimony and written analysis draw on his extensive knowledge and examination of cultural practices in Muslim countries as well as his life experience growing up in the Middle East. More information is on his website www.muslimworldexpert.com.
COI Resources
The following sections contain documents that can be consulted when looking for country of origin information.
Internet freedom improved in Jordan due to improved access, the effective use of digital activism, and a slight reduction in the number of blocked news sites in comparison to last year.
During the coverage period, several activists were arrested for criticizing public officials or calling for reform. Authorities continue to block social media applications during school examinations, including WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Twitter, and Instagram, with the number of apps increasing to eight in 2018. Internet service providers (ISPs) continue to block internet calling services (VoIP) on popular apps such as Viber, WhatsApp, and Skype, in apparent defiance of Jordan’s telecommunications regulator.
Legal restrictions on internet and digital media freedom are principally based on the Cybercrime Law and the Press and Publication Law (PPL). Under article 11 of the Cybercrime Law, online defamation may result in a fine and prison sentence of at least three months. The Law Interpretation Bureau ruled that the law could also be applied to journalists for articles that appeared on their outlets’ websites, thereby contravening journalistic protections outlined in the PPL. In September 2017, the government proposed a series of new amendments to the Cybercrime Law to explicitly cover hate speech. The changes could further impede free expression online given the term’s vague definition and its propensity to be misused to prosecute reporters and social media users for nonviolent political, social, or religious speech and satire.
Jordanians took to the streets in May 2018 in one of the country’s largest protests in recent years. More than 30 trade unions initiated a nationwide strike, and thousands of protestors followed suit in opposition to a draft law on income tax. The demonstrators relied extensively on social media and communication platforms to mobilize and, ultimately, to create effective change: the government resigned and the legislation was withdrawn.
‘Jordan constitutes one of the key migrant host states in the Middle East. In terms of the country’s foreign populations overall, Jordan’s latest population census (2015) reported 2,918,125 foreign nationals (31%) in a total population of 9,531,712. Currently Jordan has the highest Palestinian refugee to citizen ratio in the world (Mencütek 2018, 189). Following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War Jordan hosted the largest number of Palestinian refugees, who fell under the responsibility of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The state responded by granting citizenship to those Palestinians who wished to become Jordanian citizens in 1950 – as well as their descendants, who would automatically be granted citizenship according to the Family Book of Jordanian Law – but not to those seeking refuge in the
country after 1950.’
Jordan remained a committed partner on counterterrorism and countering violent extremism in 2017. As a regional leader in the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, Jordan played an important role in Coalition successes in degrading the terrorist group’s territorial control and operational reach. Although Jordan experienced a decrease in terrorist activity in 2017 compared to the previous year, the country faced a continued threat posed by terrorist groups, both domestically and along its borders. Jordanian security forces thwarted several plots and apprehended numerous terrorists. Following several high-profile attacks in 2016, Jordan took important steps to improve coordination among the security services for terrorism response capabilities and prevented several terrorist attacks.
‘Since 1948, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has accepted refugees from multiple neighboring countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region during conflict. In 2003, the war in Iraq resulted in a large influx of refugees in Jordan. In response, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), along with local grassroots
organizations, began working towards meeting the needs of the refugees. Additionally, the ongoing civil war in Syria, which began in 2011, forced hundreds of thousands of Syrians to flee their country and seek international protection in neighboring countries. Today, Jordan hosts over 760,000 registered refugees from several countries including, but not limited to, Iraq and Syria rendering Jordan the country with the second highest refugee population per capita. The large influx of Syrian refugees to Jordan has placed enormous pressure on the country and its host communities.’
This profile was developed by Dr Noha Hassan (consultant) under the supervision of Dr Ali Ardalan
(Regional Adviser) from the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, with valuable input from
Eng. Huda Ababneh (Director of Project Management, Planning and International Cooperation) of the Ministry
of Health of Jordan, Dr Saverio Bellizzi (Emergency Team Lead) and Dr Nazeema Sheerin Muthu (Monitoring and
Evaluation Officer) from WHO Country Office in Jordan, and Dr Tonia Rifaey (Technical Officer) from the WHO
Regional Office.
The document was produced under the overall direction of Dr Awad Mataria (Director, Universal Health
Coverage/Health Systems, WHO Regional Office) and Dr Jamela Al-Raiby (WHO Representative in
Jordan). The team gratefully acknowledge Dr Ahmed Al-Mandhari (WHO Regional Director for the Eastern
Mediterranean) and Dr Rana Hajjeh (Director of Programme Management, WHO Regional Office) for their support. The team would also like to acknowledge the endorsement of this initiative by His Excellency Dr Feras Tbrahim Hawari, Minister of Health of Jordan.
Jordan Legal Assistance
Find organisations offering legal and other types of assistance to refugees in Jordan.
Jordan LGBTQI+ Resources
Find organisations working for refugee LGBTQI+ rights in Jordan.
We are always looking to expand the resources on our platform. If you know about relevant experts, or you are aware of organisations and/or resources to include in our directories, please get in touch.
Last updated June 2023