The Crackdown on Yemeni Journalists Continues
Well, back to work. Yemen is not anything close to a democracy without an independent judiciary and a free press and a healthy opposition. These are what define democracy and prevent an abuse of power and holds officials to account.
The non-governmental journalists are under siege by the security forces (who kidnap them, steal their computers, occupy their offices, beat them up until they’re hospitalized, and then run the numbers on their cell phones) and the judicary which fines them, closes their papers, hauls them into court, and threatens them with imprisonment. The targeting of journalists is escalating and severe. Other methods of censorship include refusing to print the papers and issuing clone papers (newspapers that closely resemble other papers) in an effort to misinform the Yemeni public.
One conclusion we can draw from this is the regime has a lot to hide from the people.
The latest target is al-Thoury, the paper of the Socialist party. The paper has been fined and its journalists suspended from writing for defamation of public officials. (Meanwhile one function of the media is to act as a watchdog on public officials. Another is to present the peoples grievences in an open forum to society.)
Sawt al-Shoura wrote an article about how our friend al-Khaiwani was targeted in prison by the prison officials. Remember he was beaten several times. So it has been suspended (this is after they stole the computers which also happened to Sami Ghaleb as well as numerous other non-governmental newspapers.)
Meanwhile as we have seen, the governmental media performs the function of launching personal attacks against individuals in an effort to deflect the conversation from legitimate issues and discredit its opponents.
[19/11/2005] (NewsYemen ) Nov 19, Sanaa – A first Instance court in Sanaa issued a verdict today to fine the opposition newspaper Al-Thowri about YR one million (about USD 5,500) and ban two of its journalists from writing for six months.The verdict also said that the newspaper will have to issue an apology on the last page for three successive editions to two government officials based on defamation charges. The two journalists who received a suspended sentence of banning from writing, Fikri Qassim and Salahaddin Al-Dakkak, expressed outrage at the sentence, calling it a violation of their human rights.
Meanwhile, another weekly newspaper Sawt Al-Shoura’s Editor-in-Chief Abdullah Ali Sabri also stood trial today in a case filed by the Deputy Minister of Interior Mohamed Al-Qawsi, who insisted on trying Sabri again after he was acquitted from the same charges filed by the Ministry of Interior in June. Al-Qawsi pressed charges for ‘personal damage’ caused by articles published by the newspaper.
Sawt Al-Shoura, which is currently suspended after its equipment were stolen earlier this year, had published a news story saying that Al-Qawsi issued written orders to prison staffers to intimidate journalist Abdulkareem Al-Khaiwani while in prison for a verdict in another defamation lawsuit filed by the government against him.
There are several lawsuits against opposition newspapers still pending and are looked at by different courts in Sanaa. Among them is a case raised by journalist Mohamed Al-Maqaleh for an article he wrote for Al-Thowri urging President Saleh to give away some of his authority. His case will be looked into next Saturday. The newspaper also expects hearings in four more cases next Wednesday.
Opposition newspapers have been the target of various lawsuits by government officials or bodies in the last few years. In some cases, verdicts were issued to fine or even close down newspapers and ban journalists from writing. In a few cases, journalists were ultimately imprisoned for their writings criticizing the head of the state or the regime.
Journalists and international pro-press freedom organizations have complained of the lack of independence in the judiciary, whose highest supreme council is headed by the president. This had consequently resulted in verdicts in favor of the government in the majority of cases filed against journalists.
Related: this is some examples of how the “reforming” regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh attempts to discredit its opposition, journalists, reformers, and anyone articulating a legitimate grievance: it calls them unpatriotic, working against the national interest, creating strife, and agents of foreign powers.
Note the article in the government paper outright calls the opposition stupid. One of the few things the regime is good at (besides smuggling and stealing) is hurling insults.
UPI The Yemeni government Saturday escalated a war of words against the opposition which it accuses of fomenting trouble with foreign motivation and support.The official al-Thawra daily charged that the “opposition’s attempt to seek foreign support and backing is a great foolishness that places its members in a state of enmity with their country and leads them to violate national values.”
It also charged that “whoever works from inside to incite strife and conflict is also committing a great stupidity.”
“These people are misusing the freedom of expression and using all their energies in provoking and fuelling feelings of enmity and anger,” the paper added.
The opposition has accused the government of failing to introduce any of the promised political and economic reforms, and of graft and corruption.
Another pro-government newspaper, Yemen News, revealed Saturday that leaders and activists opposed to President Ali Abdullah Saleh held meetings with U.S. officials to complain about Saleh’s resistance to overdue reforms.
The paper quoted unidentified informed sources close to the opposition as saying Saleh failed to fulfill promises he made to the Americans about fighting terrorism, introducing democratic change and combating corruption.
The sources also reported that exiled opposition leaders have established contacts with the ex-president of the former South Yemen, Ali Salem Baid, who is living in exile in Oman. They said they and are coordinating efforts to “fuel internal opposition” against Saleh.
HT: RYN
Progress toward democracy in Yemen is clearly moving backwards. The regime is becoming more repressive, the people’s voice is increasingly excluded from the political space, and accountability is non-existant.
Everyone is talking about “corruption” including Saleh. There are numerous investigations documenting corruption but no one has gone to jail. If you are in the elite you are immune from the law-ie, the government does not follow the law, it exists only as a tool of repression against those outside the elite.
If there were indictments issued against the most corrupt people in Yemen (those who have abused the sytem the worst and stolen the most), almost the entire upper leadership of the government would be in jail, Saleh and his relatives would be in the docks.
