The New Press Law
The New Press Law, worse than the old press law: Sami Ghalib, Editor-in-Chief of al-Nida and a member of the YJS confirmed to the Yemen Times that the draft law never cancels the penalty of imprisonment for publication issues and does make the YJS membership mandatory for all pressmen.
(The government stooges who write the propaganda in the official newspapers are also members of the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate, and the title of the YT article is “Exploiting Disputes Within the YJS.”)
In less than eight months, over 79 journalists and opinion writers were summoned to appear before court to be interrogated and investigated for what they had written. The victims included 72 publishers and chief and managing editors of independent, party-affiliated, opposition and state-run newspapers.
The report stated: “The al-Thawri (socialist) opposition newspaper scored the highest numbers of interrogations, trials and other legal actions sued against it. Presently, its editor-in-chief is being tried along with a number of reporters over publishing 13 articles on different issues, one of them allegedly included humiliation against the Statesman. 4 lawsuits are filed against al-Wahdawi opposition newspaper and the same number of cases is sued against al-Nihar independent paper.
“Other independent papers, among them al-Wasat, al-Asima, al-Rased, al-Lewa, al-Sharq, al-Haq, al-Bilad, Saut al-Shura and al-Fursan are being quizzed,” the report said. “The security authorities shut down in the middle of last June the head-office of al-Ibhar independent paper, suspended any printing of it and fined one of its reporters.”
Also the new law doesnt address the issue of the monopoly on broadcast media. And somehow Saleh will spin the new, more oppressive law as reform, maybe get another congressional commendation.
