“Governments don’t have the right to shut down news outlets just because they dispute the accuracy of a story,” said CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa Coordinator Sherif Mansour. “The Hamas government should immediately allow Al-Arabiya and Maan to resume their operations.”

Ismail Jaber, the attorney general, said the outlets reported “fabricated news” that “threatened civil peace and damaged the Palestinian people and their resistance” to Israel, according to a statement published by the Hamas government’s media office today. Jaber described the shutdown as temporary, although the order did not specify when the offices will be allowed to resume operations.

Maan, headquartered in the West Bank, and Al-Arabiya, based in Saudi Arabia, often carry critical coverage of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Hamas statement cited an article that Maan published on Wednesday that said Muslim Brotherhood leaders had fled to Gaza to organize activities in support of ousted Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi. The article cited Israeli sources. In a report on Maan’s website, Nasser Lahham, the agency’s editor-in-chief, stood by the agency’s story.

The statement did not specify a particular Al-Arabiya article, but The New York Times said that Al-Arabiya had reported a similar story. Al-Arabiya said on Thursday that security forces had told its staff that anyone who tried to work in the office would be arrested.

Hamas authorities also shut down Lens, a local Palestinian media production company, on Thursday, according to news reports. The New York Times cited an anonymous Lens employee who said that the Hamas government had shut it down because it allegedly worked with i24, a new Israeli satellite station launched this month looking to emulate the success of global broadcasters like Al-Jazeera. Palestinian journalists in Gaza are barred from working with Israeli media.

The Jordanian Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) on Sunday ordered local Internet service providers (ISPs) to block websites that did not have licenses. The order originated from a memo by Fayez al-Shawabkeh, head of the government’s Department of Press and Publications, on Saturday.

“Censoring 300 websites makes Jordan’s talk of political reform seem hollow,” said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Coordinator Sherif Mansour. “Authorities should immediately rescind this order and uphold King Abdullah’s stated support for political reform and media freedom.”

It is not clear to what extent the ISPs have followed the government’s orders. The news website Al-Bawaba reported on Sunday that several websites had already been blocked, but that its site, which is also on the list, remained accessible.

As each ISP responds individually to the government’s orders, some websites will be blocked for some users but remain available to others. The government’s memo did not list specific URLs for many of the websites.

The memo cited Article 49 of Jordan’s Press and Publications Law, which was amended amid considerable debate last year to require local and international websites to register with the government, placing them under the same strict regulations as print publications. Websites were given a deadline of January 17 to comply, news sources reported.

“The idea of licensing news websites is contrary to the Jordanian constitution, international commitments, and public statements by the King and government,” said Daoud Kuttab, founder of AmmanNet and a recipient of CPJ’s 1996 International Press Freedom Award. AmmanNet is one of the sites listed in the memo. “It’s also a punishment to the Jordanian public, because they are blocking these sites only in Jordan while the rest of the world can see the contents of these websites,” Kuttab said.

The information minister, Mohammed Momani, said that media regulation aimed to enhance “professionalism and credibility” as a “key component of Jordan’s political reform efforts,” The Associated Press reported today. CPJ has called the amendments “a huge step backward in Jordan’s press freedom record.”