Forming a gang with the intent to commit thievery or infringe on people or money. Prosecutors frequently use article 118 of the penal code, which bans “distributing relations with a foreign state,” to limit critical speech about foreign rulers. In September 2013, for example, the State Security Court prosecutor, a military officer, invoked article 118 to charge and jail the editor and publisher of the Jafra News website after the site posted a thirdparty YouTube video deemed insulting to the brother of Qatar’s ruler. In October, the same prosecutor used the charge to order the arrest and detention of three activists accused of distributing posters carrying the word Raba’a, a reference to a square in Cairo where Muslim Brotherhood protesters were dispersed by security forces on August 14. Jordanian prosecutors have pursued a four-year prosecution against Sufyan al-Tell, an environmental activist, and Mwafaq Mahadin, a journalist, for criticizing the United States and Jordan’s foreign policy on satellite TV programs. Reuters reported that the authorities regularly usethe same charge to arrest and pursue security-related prosecutions against Jordanians who return to Jordan after fighting with Syrian rebels against the Syrian army. Amendments to the State Security Court law, promulgated in early 2014, restricted the jurisdiction of the court to crimes related to terrorism, espionage, treason, drugs, or money counterfeiting, and therefore removed the charge “disturbing relations with a foreign state” from the court’s purview. By classifying this act as terrorism, the terrorism law amendments return it to the jurisdiction of the State Security Court. “Jordanian officials promised that State Security Court reform would put an end to all speech-related prosecutions by that court, but the new terrorism law amendments seem likely to bring them back in through the back door,” Stork said. The terrorism amendments also toughen penalties. They require the death penalty for any act that causes a death, destroys or damages a building if someone was inside, uses poisonous or other dangerous materials, or for a life-threatening attack against the king, queen, or crown prince. The law stipulates life imprisonment for provoking an armed rebellion and an attack against the king that is not life threatening. All other acts proscribed by the law are punishable by “temporary hard labor,” between three and 20 years in prison. The new law retains powers granted by the 2006 Anti-Terrorism Law to State Security Court prosecutors – all of whom are military officers – including the power to order surveillance, travel bans, searches, and freeze money belonging to anyone suspected of involvement in a crime of terrorism, all without judicial review. Jordan’s Criminal Procedure Code grants all prosecutors in Jordan the right to detain suspects at their discretion. The law effectively bars bail for all terrorism suspects. Jordan is the second country in the region to pass new terrorism legislation in 2014, following Saudi Arabia, which recently promulgated a law that contained “harming the reputation of the kingdom” as part of its definition of terrorism. Egypt is considering draft amendments to 17 articles of its penal code that define terrorism to include actions – potentially such as labor strikes or peaceful protests – that could “obstruct” the work of public officials or criminalize any