Carefully tying her niqab in front of the mirror and covering her colourful embroidered Palestinian dress with a plain abaya, Fadia explained she didn’t want to attract attention. The 50-something mother was getting ready for one of the regular women-only meetings organised for years by those of them close to the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood.

Since April last year Fadia’s attendance could lead to the authorities suspecting her of promoting ‘illegal activities’. She told me, ‘We only read the Quran and talk about religion, never politics.’ The weekly meetings remain legal as long as participants avoid claiming that ‘Islam is the solution’ to the crises facing the country. This was one of the first slogans of the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin), founded in Egypt by Hassan al-Banna in 1928. Saying it now would constitute a crime in Jordan.

The Jordanian branch of the Brotherhood was dissolved in 2020, although it was able to continue some of its social activities. But on 23 April 2025, after the arrest of 16 people accused of planning an attack on Jordanian soil, it was banned outright and its assets confiscated, within less than ten days and without any form of trial. Video of eight of the suspects confessing was broadcast on national television. Their declaration that they had been recruited by the Brotherhood was proof enough for the monarchy of their responsibility for planning it – allegedly in collaboration with Hamas.

The ban was officially imposed to protect the kingdom’s security. But Assem al-Omari, the defendants’ lawyer and a specialist in political opposition cases, argued that this was ‘the result of years of political violence against the Brotherhood’, which challenges the monarchy’s right to hereditary succession.

The scale of the crackdown is striking. I saw dozens of men and women stream through the lawyer’s office: leftwing activists, Islamists and journalists, almost all of them just out of prison or accused of ‘inciting discord’ (…)

Full article: 1 904 words.