On December 24, 2020, Jamal Haddad, publisher of the news website Alwakaai, was summoned and detained pending investigation under the country’s anti-terrorism law by the National Security Prosecutor, according to the Jordan Press Association, and news reports. Two days earlier, Haddad published an editorial in Alwakaai that raised questions about government officials receiving the COVID-19 vaccine when it was not yet available to the general public.

Jordanian Minister of Media Affairs Ali Al Ayed did not immediately respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment. 

Jordanian authorities arrested at least three other journalists earliest in the year because of their coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, including Bangladeshi journalist Selim Akash and two journalists from the privately owned satellite station Roya TV, general manager Fares Sayegh and news director Mohammad Alkhalidi, CPJ documented.