In the last month, an American senator has followed calls on Jordan by international and American groups such as DAWN MENA, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Women Journalists Without Chains, and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee to definitively drop all charges under the cybercrime law against the journalist and US-Jordanian national Ali Younes. Notably, US senator Chris Van Hollen described in a video interview with Drop Site News posted on 1 October that Jordan had told him that it had dropped the charges, but this contradicts what Younes has been since informed.
Ali Younes is an investigative journalist who holds both American and Jordanian citizenship and is based in the American state of South Carolina; he is a contributor to Drop Site News and former correspondent for Al Jazeera. Earlier in the summer, Younes allegedly retweeted an article that calls for reducing US aid to Jordan. When Younes flew into Amman on 17 August, Jordanian authorities detained him at the airport, and authorities charged him on 24 August under the cybercrime law for threatening national security, with hate crime and sedition charges as well. Younes plead not guilty, rejecting the allegation and the charges. Upon prosecution, Younes was served a ban from leaving Jordan, which has since been lifted; Younes recently returned to the US.