Al-Khaiwani Pardoned Again
Lets recall that al Khaiwani was arrested as a personal vendetta by Saleh, beat up, his kid slapped, interrogated for a week, released and then kidnapped and really beat up badly, convicted and imprisoned for months, pardoned and re-convicted and now pardoned again. (This is not even counting what happened to him in 2004/5.) Its like battered wife syndrome translated to the national level, yes its nice the abuse stopped momentarily but its important not to lose sight of the over-riding fact that it never should have occurred in the first place.
And the announcement about freeing the broadcast media is getting old also; its about the fifth time I heard that in the last five years, nothing happens. More talk, headlines and propaganda and when the dust settles, journalists are still getting beat up, no new licenses or as we saw recently, the new TV channel goes to al Zindani… So it would be nice if true but Saleh’s words are meaningless, so lets see what happens before celebrating this announcement.
Yemen pardons opposition journalist facing jail
Yemen’s president said on Saturday he had pardoned an opposition journalist facing a six-year jail sentence for links to armed rebels. A Yemeni court last year convicted Abdelkarim al-Khaywani, editor of opposition newspaper al-Shura, to six years in jail after he was found carrying images and statements of the rebels.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh announced the pardon in a speech to a journalist union’s conference, in which he also called for new legislation to allow private television and radio stations and easing rules for the launch of new publications.
Battles with the Shi’ite Muslim rebels, which had raged on and off since 2004 in the north of the poor Arab country, subsided last year. Hundreds of people have been killed in the conflict and thousands have fled their homes.
Sunni Muslims form a majority of Yemen’s 19 million population, while most of the rest are Shi’ite Zaydis.
