Armies of Liberation

Jane Novak's blog about Yemen

Editor fined and suspended from work

Filed under: Yemen — by Jane Novak at 7:07 pm on Wednesday, July 12, 2006

This is such total garbage.

UPI: A Yemeni court ordered the suspension of the editor in chief of an opposition magazine from work for six months in a new crackdown on unruly journalists.

In addition to being barred from work in the Wahdawi magazine, mouthpiece of the Unionist Nasserite Popular Party, Ali Sakkaf was ordered by the court Wednesday to pay a fine of half a million Yemeni royals ($2,000).

Sakkaf was sued by the defense ministry for publishing information that the leadership of the Republican Guards seized land belonging to citizens in the province of Zumar south of Sanaa, without paying compensation to the owners.

Commenting on the ruling, Sakkaf told United Press International “it is a move that contradicts official speech about respecting press freedoms.”

He said “issuing such a sentence at a time the country is preparing for holding presidential elections constitutes a negative indication about the future of journalistic and political work in Yemen.”

In another development, the Organization of Yemeni Women Journalists Without Limits strongly denounced a hostile media campaign targeting female journalist Samia Aghbari in the independent al-Dustour magazine.

The organization said in a statement “the campaign is directed against Yemeni women in general and journalists and civilian society activists in particular” and urged al-Dustour’s editor in chief to investigate the humiliating and insulting comments published in his magazine against Aghbari.

Al-Dustour, whose editor in chief is a former Baath party member, has been lashing out freely at opposition journalists without legal action against the publication.

Dang I really have to do that article on the land confescation.

Isn’t the leadership of the Republican Guards Ahmed, President Saleh’s son?

More from the YT.

5 Comments »

1

Comment by LindaSoG

7/12/2006 @ 10:15 pm

Unbelievable. They break their own rules to silence someone?

The surpression of information is a sure sign of a diseased government.

For shame.

2

Comment by Jane

7/12/2006 @ 10:19 pm

The subtext is that influential persons are confescating public, private and endowment lands. The article that triggered the “judicial” sentence was about the presidents relatives doing it.

The funny part is there is a public awareness campaign about corruption going on.

The nasty things they are writing about the female journalists are really low. Just shows you how slimy the regime is.

3

Comment by Beth Donovan

7/13/2006 @ 6:45 am

I think a sign of a desperate and despicable government is the muzzling of the news.

4

Comment by Wild Thing

7/13/2006 @ 5:06 pm

How awful, I am glad you have posted about this. Your voice means a lot on these thing Jane, thanks for all the work you do.

5

Comment by Jane

7/13/2006 @ 10:05 pm

Hi Beth, Hi Chrissie, awful and despicable pretty much sums it up. Thanks ladies.

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