Jordan LGBTQIA+ community says secret police targets them

Jordan’s secret police have been accused of adopting new techniques to clamp down on the LGBTQIA+ community. The Guardian reported that officials are allegedly revealing the sexual orientation of people to their families.

The report quoted human rights groups as saying that multiple LGBTQIA+ organizations are in the crosshairs of the secret police and at least two of them have been shut down so far. Several activists have also allegedly been “abducted, harassed and monitored.”

The Guardian said that the Jordanian government has denied that security agencies are targetting LGBTQIA+ individuals while adding that 'no LGBTQ+ organisations exist in Jordan'.

An unnamed director of such an organization said he was detained and interrogated by the secret police. His religiously conservative parents were later informed about their child’s sexual orientation.

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“Our relationship was ruined after that. I had to move out from my parents’ house,” he said, according to a Guardian report.