Jordan’s ex-crown prince vows to defy efforts to silence him

The former crown prince of Jordan vowed Monday to defy the orders of the government and his half brother, King Abdullah II, to stop communicating with the world even as he remained under what he described as house arrest in his home.

“I’m not going to obey when they say you can’t go out, you can’t tweet, you can’t communicate with people,” the former crown prince, Prince Hamzah, said in an audio message posted to Twitter by his supporters.

The government has accused Hamzah of destabilising the “security and stability” of Jordan, a vital U.S. ally in the Middle East. The Jordanian foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, suggested Sunday that the prince was involved in a failed palace coup that had foreign backing.

The bitter family feud and public airing of palace intrigue has been a blow to Jordan’s image as an island of stability in a volatile region.

Bordering Syria, Iraq, Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the country plays a pivotal role in regional security, and Jordan’s allies are watching developments anxiously.

Hamzah’s comments Monday suggested that he was not going to be easily silenced.

The oldest son of the late King Hussein and his favourite wife, the U.S.-born Queen Noor, Hamzah is a graduate of the Harrow School in Britain and the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst.

He attended Harvard University and has served in the Jordanian armed forces.

Abdullah, who is 59 and also the product of elite U.S. and British schools, named Hamzah crown prince in 1999 but stripped him of the title in 2004 and transferred it to his son, Prince Hussein, now 26.

Hamzah seemed to be attempting to rebuild his influence in recent years.

In a speech Sunday afternoon, Safadi directly accused Hamzah of having worked with a former finance minister, Bassem Awadallah, and a junior member of the royal family, Sharif Hassan bin Zaid, to target “the security and stability of the nation.”

Safadi alleged that Hamzah had liaised with Awadallah throughout the course of the day Saturday, accusing him of “incitement and efforts to mobilize citizens against the state in a manner that threatens national security.”

He said the government had intercepted communications between the prince and Awadallah and announced the arrest of at least 14 other people.

Hamzah fired back, defending himself in a video released Saturday.

He denied involvement in any plot against Abdullah, although he did condemn the government as corrupt, incompetent and authoritarian.