Jordan Press Association JPA to drop lawsuit over columnist club  

(MENAFN - Jordan Times) The Jordan Press Association (JPA) has agreed to drop a lawsuit over the establishment of a "columnists club" after club founders agreed to work under the JPA's umbrella, an association official said on Tuesday.

The founders of the club, which was licensed by the Ministry of Culture, will officially have 10 days to come under the association's supervision for the case to be dropped, according to JPA Vice President Hikmat Momani.

"The JPA council has taken a decision not to go ahead with the lawsuit after club founders informed the association of their approval to work under the JPA's supervision," Momani told The Jordan Times yesterday.

He added that the JPA has decided to establish its own club for columnists to be open to association members within the next two weeks.

Last month, the JPA said it would bring a lawsuit against the government for licensing a new club for columnists, which the association says violates Article 2 of JPA Law No. 15 for the year 1998, which requires all journalists to be members of the association.

As many of the club's founding council are not JPA members, the club's licensing represented "a clear violation of the JPA Law," and "undermines the association's mission and objectives in overseeing media affairs in the Kingdom," JPA President Abul Wahab Zgheilat previously told The Jordan Times.

He stressed that the club should have been established under JPA supervision in order to keep all media activities under one umbrella.

Club founders stressed that the group was formed to bring together writers of dailies, weeklies and news websites with politicians in workshops to discuss news developments, not to regulate the media sector.