Image courtesy of Flickr.
By Amelia Luo ’23
Global Editor & Photographer
On April 4, Jordan’s former Crown Prince Hamzah bin Hussein released a video through his lawyer to the BBC, which stated that he was under house arrest due to criticism he voiced toward the government. Hamzah is the half-brother of King of Jordan Abdullah II, who has been reigning since 1999. In the video, Hamzah accused the Jordanian government of “corruption, incompetence and harassment.” According to Hamzah, the government was not accusing him of making the criticism himself.
In the video, Hamzah said, “I am not the person responsible for the breakdown in governance, for the corruption and for the incompetence that has been prevalent in our governing structure for the last 15 to 20 years and has been getting worse. … I am not responsible for the lack of faith people have in their institutions. … It has reached the point where no one is able to speak or express an opinion on anything without being bullied, arrested, harassed and threatened.”
According to The New York Times, quarrel in the palace has always been a Jordanian motif. However, this is the first time that their discord has been made public at this level.
Hamzah is the oldest son of the late King Hussein and his fourth wife Queen Noor. He was named crown prince in 1999 and Hussein’s favorite son. But at the time of Hussein’s death, he was seen as too inexperienced to succeed the crown. Abdullah, his older half-brother, succeeded instead and took away Hamzah’s title of crown prince in 2004. He then gave that title to his son, Hussein.
Xinran Wang ’24 commented on the issue, stating, “It almost seems to me that King Abdullah II is blaming others for his insecurity if those criticisms are not even made by Prince Hamzah himself, only by people who he interacted with.
“Regardless of the initial charges,” Wang continued, “I think Prince Hamzah made some subtle attack on the government in his video, calling Jordan a place lacking free speech. Hence, the disagreement between the two of them might be deeper than it looks, … and now they are just going back to the old way of concealing it.”
Yuyang Zhang ’23 added, “The Jordanian royal family has always kept their disruption concealed to create an [image] of stability. However, this recent conflict would have a huge impact on regional politics, especially in a tense region such as the Middle East.”
Abdullah and Hamzah released a statement on April 5 suggesting that the prince is pledging loyalty to the king. According to The New York Times, Hamzah claimed that “the interest of the nation comes above all else and we all should stand behind His Majesty in his efforts to protect Jordan and its interests.”
This statement is very different in tone from the audio recording released by the prince’s supporters earlier, which stated that he would not readily accept being silenced. On April 6, the Jordanian government also issued a gag order, which banned national news outlets and social media users from posting about the case.
According to a leaked recording attained by The New York Times, General Yousef Huneiti, the head of the Jordanian Armed Forces, agrees that the prince has not personally gone against the king but attended social events where the criticism was made. Those gatherings included talks about “government performance” and about the current Crown Prince Hussein. Even though that criticism only comes from the people whom Hamzah was meeting with, the Jordanian government still considers his action as “crossing the red lines.”
On April 10, 2021, Huneiti stated, “Starting from today, there will be a commitment from His Highness, the prince, not to go to these special occasions, not to mix with these people who have foreign and domestic agendas, and to restrict visits to family visits.”