Armies of Liberation

Guest Post by Abu Yemen

More Violations of Human Rights and Breaches of Trust

The civil society in Yemen and the entire free world are shocked to
learn of more violations of human rights and breaches of trust taking
place in the Republic of Yemen. A highly respected journalist, Abdul
Karim Al Khaiwani was kidnapped as he was leaving from a news agency
office around noon time in the main street of Sana’a (Al Zubairi
Street). It is reported that a Toyota sedan filled with security
officers forced him in the vehicle and drove off at a high speed to a
remote area (within Bir Salem) where he was severely kicked, beaten,
and thrown outside the car unconscious. Two days later, Al Khaiwani
revealed in a press conference that he was kidnapped by a National
Security unit whose commander is Ammar Mohammed Abdullah Saleh, the
son of the deceased brother of the President.

The entire security force usually functions under direct orders and supervision of the
President. This is the third, if not fourth, act of intimidation,
aggression, and political detention of Mr. Al Khaiwani. It is
reported that the kidnappers have warned Al Khaiwani to cease
political activities and contain himself within his residence with his
wife and children, otherwise they will render themselves to death.
Further, it is reported that the President and his ruling party are
likely to impose amendments to the press ordinance making it
impossible to express free opinions, not even to criticize government
policies that usually violate basic constitutional and human rights.

The situation in Yemen is deteriorating; the turmoil in Sa’ada is
beyond containment, public demonstrations continue to cover all
Southern Yemeni governorates and are spreading to Ibb, Taiz, Dammar,
and even to the capital Sana’a in the north. The living conditions
are worsening, and equally is the security situation. Corruption is a
day-to-day practice by the President and his men and repeated
announcements of establishing committees within the government and/or
Parliament are simple efforts to divert attention, mislead public
opinion, and allow time for more wrong doings to take place.

Yemeni foreign policy is the other face of the coin, where the talk about
Yemeni democratization and reforms are at a rocket-high scale, so much
so that both the Belgian and Spanish governments are anxious to host
the Yemeni dictator next November. The Arab league is still an
admirer of such a retarded dictator of Yemen who claims to be able to
solve major political crises in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, and Somalia
where it is obvious that he is a total failure in overcoming political
failures in his own country, Yemen. It is therefore time for all free
minded people and institutes to expose the tyrant in Yemen and to save
the desperate Yemenis, and prevent more miseries and failures.

written and submitted by Abu Yemen

Thats good. The Civil Service Minister is the same guy who identified 60,000 ghost workers and double dippers, who withheld the doctors raises’ until the Health Ministry presented accurate employment rolls, introduced biometric employee identity cards and some other good stuff. I think this is internal reforms within the ministry which certainly sets a good example.

Saba

Govt approves set of administrative institutional reforms

[28 August 2007]

SANA’A, (Saba)- The cabinet weekly session, chaired by Premier Ali Mujawar, approved Tuesday a set of administrative and institutional reforms which were presented by Ministry of Civil Service and Insurance according to orders of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The reforms aim to improve the governmental administration to better competence and efficiency of its systems by defining their roles and tasks to halt specializations overlapping and repetition, the thing which would ease dealings with the governmental systems and ensure high quality services.

Therefore, the cabinet approved restructuring Ministry of Civil Service and Insurance in the light of an approved project presented by the Project of Updating Civil Service.

It called for finalizing procedures of issuing the organizing bylaw of the civil service ministry which would reinforce the ministry’s performance in coordination with the different governmental systems.

Moreover, the cabinet also directed to form a supreme committee and a higher technical committee to study results of the special study over reviewing role and performance of the government and to suggest required visions to be executed.

Yemeni President Saleh is just so sensative, if you write an article that reflects badly on him, he sends some goons to cut your fingers off. Meanwhile Saleh holds a democracy conferences and has a “reform plan” which apparently does not include the freedom of the press to investigate corruption or in this case conditions in jails.

CPJ

Yemeni editor abducted, severely beaten

New York, August 27, 2007­­­—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the abduction and brutal beating of a Yemeni editor by gunmen in Sana’a today. The local journalists CPJ spoke with suspected the gunmen are part of the government’s security forces.

A silver Toyota SUV carrying six gunmen wearing civilian clothing descended upon Abdel Karim al-Khaiwani, former editor of the online newspaper Al-Shoura, while he was waiting for a taxi outside the offices of the weekly newspaper Al-Nedaa in central Sana’a at around 2 p.m. local time, eyewitnesses told CPJ. The perpetrators forcibly bundled him into the vehicle and sped away, the witnesses said. The witnesses said the license plates of the vehicle were covered with black material.

The gunmen blindfolded al-Khaiwani, tied his hands, and took him to the remote village of Mahalein in the Khawlan district, southeast of Sana’a, said Basheer al-Sayed, editorial secretary of Al-Nedaa, who spoke with al-Khawaini after the attack. According to al-Sayed, al-Khaiwani was badly beaten, with several blows to the face and chest. The men threatened him with a pair of shears. They asked him which hand he used for writing and when he told them the left one, they attempted to break his fingers, al-Sayed told CPJ. The gunmen confiscated al-Khaiwani’s passport, identification card, and cell phone, al-Sayed said.

The gunmen threatened to kill al-Khaiwani and his family if he writes another word that harms Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh or the country’s national unity, CPJ sources said. They specifically mentioned an article he wrote published by Al-Nedaa on August 16 titled “What’s Before the State: A Homeland Behind Bars,” al-Sayed told CPJ. In the article, al-Khaiwani discussed the status of prisoners, their treatment, the conditions in the country’s jails, and the injustice they face.

CPJ sources suspected the gunmen belonged to the Yemeni security forces. Al-Sayed told CPJ that al-Khaiwani recognized one of his abductors today as one of the Yemeni security officers who raided his home in June. Interior Ministry investigative police officers took al-Khaiwani’s statement at the hospital, al-Sayed said.

“This outrageous attack on Abdel Karim al-Khaiwani represents a grave threat to Yemen’s already tenuous press freedom climate,” CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said. “The Yemeni authorities must investigate this vicious assault and bring those responsible to justice. The failure to do so would indicate that the Yemeni government condones violent assaults on journalists.

Al-Khaiwani was treated at Al-Ahali Hospital in Sana’a and discharged later in the evening. He suffered extensive bruising on his face, chest, and hands, al-Sayed said.

Al-Khaiwani faces vague terrorism charges brought by a state security court on July 4. He was detained on June 20 by Yemeni security agents, who also raided the journalist’s Sana’a home. He was released on bail in late July. Security agents who placed him under arrest at the time severely beat him and dragged him to jail barefoot and in his underwear, according to his lawyer Khaled al-Anesi.

Al-Khaiwani has been a harsh critic of government nepotism and the government’s fight against rebels in Saada. In 2004, as editor of the then-print weekly Al-Shoura, al-Khaiwani was sentenced to a year in jail for incitement, insulting the president, publishing false news, and causing tribal and sectarian discrimination through his published criticisms of the government’s conduct in the fighting.

Since 2005, CPJ has identified at least six Yemeni journalists who have been the targets of assaults that were believed to be politically motivated. In all but one of the cases the perpetrators have not been identified by the authorities.

© 2007 Committee to Protect Journalists. http://www.cpj.org E-mail: info@cpj.org

August 28, 2007- Thousands of people in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, rallied before the cabinet ,protesting soaring prices ,deteriorated public services, violating of rights and freedoms and mistaken policies adopted by the ruling party’s consequent governments. (Read on …)

If this is true, it explains a lot including GCC and Saudi support, US patience, but the report is from Debka. More here by John.

The Yemen oil pipe line is scheduled to run through Hadramout to Makalla. The map with all the pipes is interesting too.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Yemen have launched the vast Trans-Arabia Oil Pipeline project with encouragement from Washington, DEBKA-Net Weekly 313 revealed on Aug. 10, 2007. By crisscrossing Arabia overland, the net of oil pipelines will bypass the Straits of Hormuz at the throat of the Persian Gulf and so remove Gulf oil routes from the lurking threat of Iranian closure.

The 35,000-strong new Saudi security force, disclosed this week, will protect the new project, together with the oil installations of the world’s biggest oil exporter, from attack by such enemies as al Qaeda or Iran. The first 5,000 recruits are already in training, as plans advance to start laying the first section of the new pipeline system in November, 2007.

Because of the sensitivity of their mission, Saudi security experts assisted by American advisers are thoroughly screening each recruit about his family, tribal and past associations to weed out religious extremists. DEBKAfile adds that the new oil security force will be the third largest in Saudi Arabia, after the armed forces and the National Guard.

The first Trans-Arabia pipeline will carry 5 million barrels of oil a day, almost one third of the 17 million barrels produced by Gulf emirates. The crude will be pumped through pipes running from the world’s biggest oil terminal owned by Saudi Aramco at Ras Tannura, south to S. Yemen’s oil port of Mukallah and west to the Red Sea port and industrial town of Yanbu north of Jeddah.

The $6 billion investment in the first stage will come from the participating governments within the framework of the Gulf Cooperation Council – GCC. (Read on …)

Subsidies looming

SANA’A, Aug. 25 — Deputy director of the capital secretariat chamber of commerce Mohammed Sallah has warned the Yemeni government of the consequences of subsidizing wheat and flour. He stated that the retail prices of wheat and flour at the government’s outlets are around 350 Riyals below cost, he also added that the government should first make a careful study of the consequences of such interference in the market.

Sallah also stated that while the notion of reducing the prices of wheat and flour for Yemeni consumers is a honorable one, but doing as such without studying the consequences will have dire effects on the economy and the government’s budget. He quoted from previous experiences that showed how the government’s eventual removal of such subsidies had disastrous effects. (Read on …)

Writing about war does not make you a terrorist

Sydney Morning Herald, Austrailia

Rather than hailing the Arab world’s catch-up with the internet revolution, however, some Arab regimes have done the opposite. They have blocked blogs, removed posts and arrested and detained bloggers or prohibited them from travelling, according to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, a Cairo-based group (www.hrinfo.net).

After Yemeni officials arrested the editor of an online newspaper, the Britain-based advocacy group Article 19 (www.article19.org) lobbied for the editor’s release. Officials, Article 19 wrote, failed to distinguish “between those who write about conflict and those who perpetrate it.”

Its not like they weren’t there, just laying low.

Source: AP

The U.S. Embassy in Yemen has warned Americans here to reduce their profile because the country is experiencing “previously unseen” terrorist actions.

In a message dated Monday to Americans living in Yemen, the embassy said the terrorist threat was not temporary. It urged Americans to avoid large groups of Westerners, vary their travel routes and times to and from work and limit travel within the capital, San’a.

“We are now experiencing terrorist actions previously unseen in Yemen,” read the message, which also reminded Americans that there is an “active” al-Qaida presence in Yemen and Western interests “may continue to be targeted.”

The latest warning comes more than a month after a suicide bomber killed seven Spanish tourists and two Yemenis near a temple linked to the ancient Queen of Sheba in the country’s north. An eighth Spaniard died about a week later at a Yemen hospital from injuries she received from the blast.

Yemeni authorities have said the suicide bombing’s mastermind was Ahmed Bassiouni Dewidar, an Egyptian national and alleged al-Qaida operative who was killed in July while resisting arrest.

Al-Qaida continues to have an active presence in Yemen, the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden, despite government efforts to fight the terror network. Al-Qaida was blamed for the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Aden that killed 17 American sailors and the attack on a French oil tanker that killed one person two years later.