Armies of Liberation

Four Yemeni journalists were killed since Saleh’s return in September.

10/25: He was speaking to the International Press Institute’s Naomi Hunt by Skype, which was something of a feat because Skype has been jammed from Yemen since February.

It is just one of the ways in which the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh is inhibiting media coverage in his country. (Read on …)

Whenever I am considering retiring, some one beats up* al Khaiwani

and just pisses me off all over again.

Update, ripped shamelessly from Howie:

(Read on …)

The western media black-out continues:

Clearly for FOX News, news worthiness depends on who is doing the killing; one person killed by al Qaeda vastly outweighs the hundred killed by the Yemeni government in the last week. For a day, CNN ran the headline: Yemeni women burn veils, wow, interesting, at least they mentioned “Yemen,” as the state was simultaneously pounding residences in Taiz with artillery and shelling villages in Arhab with missiles.

And neither one can find for five seconds for this from today, (if its not working try this direct link.)

Fox News: Car Bomb Kills Anti-Terror Chief in South Yemen.

VS.

- Airstrikes on Arhab leave 120 civilians killed, 340 wounded

- Nationwide slaughter since UN SC council resolution 2014

- One million demand regime change

- Yemen Post: Several Million of Yemeni gathered nationwide in the streets of Yemen yesterday, demanding the fall of the regime and Ali Abdullah Saleh’s trial as they say the president is continuing to murder his people.

Protesters had spell out “butcher” across their chest in red ink in denunciation of president Saleh’s many crimes. “He’s using snipers to gun down women and children, Sana’a and Taiz are under shelling attacks everyday…Saleh is killing Yemeni and the World stands silent…We will not,” said Mohamed Hassan Said a defected officer.

In Sana’a, the capital, a funeral march was organized to bury the bodies of the victims of the revolution amongst whom was 4 year-old little Waffa. While carrying the coffins the crowd was chorusing anti-regime slogan, asking the international community to bear witness of the crimes committed against peaceful Yemeni people. (Read on …)

Islah’s repression of independent thought and revolutionaries continues:

Yemen Post: Islah profile: As revolutionaries in Yemen are celebrating their victory in eventually obtaining some worldwide attention, and relishing in the fact that western nations have taken up the matter of Saleh’s presidency to the UN Security Council, the main opposition party, al-Islah is slowly but surely high jacking the revolution, rallying to its cause more and more protesters. (Read on …)

Five killed since protests began.The media is a favorite Saleh target.

YEMEN – Two more journalists killed in Saleh regime violence

Reporters Without Borders firmly condemns cameraman Abdel Hakim Al-Nour’s death during a military offensive last night in Taiz province and reporter Abdel Majid Al-Samawi’s death in a Sanaa hospital on 3 October from the gunshot wound he received more than a week ago.

Their deaths bring to five the number of journalists who have been killed since February, when protests calling for President Ali Abdallah Saleh’s departure began.

A cameraman and producer for the Mas production company Al-Nour was killed during a bombardment of the city Taiz that caused many causalities. He was also the person responsible for media at the Hayel Saeed Anam Association.

Al-Samawi died in Sanaa Technological Hospital from the neck injury he received when a sniper shot him on 25 September. Born in 1956 in a village in Damar province, he leaves a wife and six children.

The three other journalists killed since the start of the protests are Hassan Al-Wadhaf, a cameraman with Al-Hurra TV, Mohamed Yahia Al-Malayia, a correspondent for the Al-Salam and newspapers, and Jamal Al-Sharabi, a photographer for the independent daily Al-Masdar.

Al-Wadhaf died on 23 September from the injuries he received while covering violence against demonstrators in Sanaa five days earlier. Al-Malayia and Al-Sharabi were among the many fatalities when snipers opened fire on demonstrators in Sanaa on 18 March.

Reporters Without Borders offers its condolences to the families, friends and colleagues of the two latest victims, and holds the Yemeni authorities responsible for their deaths.

The press freedom organization is very disturbed by the increase in violence against civilians since President Saleh’s return on 3 October from Saudi Arabia, where he spent four months recovering from the injuries he received in an attack on the presidential compound.

They place pro-Saleh opeds in western papers.

Bell Pottinger acted for controversial Yemen organization
September 1st, 2011 | by Melanie Newman Bureau of Investigative Journalism

Bell Pottinger, the London-based public relations firm, has been working for a little-known organization in Yemen with apparent strong links to the country’s president, the Bureau can reveal. (Read on …)

The following interview with the manager of Saada Radio gives a glimpse into Saada and al Jawf including the recent clashes between the Houthis and local Islahis:

Yemen Times
Q: But, some locals in Sa’ada told us that the Houthis do not allow anyone to air an opinion against them, for instance, describing them as Twelver Shiites.

A: First of all it is misleading to say that the Houthis are Twelver Shiites. They are not. They are Zaydis.

Are you a Houthi?

No I’m not Houthi, I’m a state-employee at Sa’ada Radio. We used to be against the Houthis. I’m Zaydi and over 99 percent of the population in Sa’ada is Zaydi, but there is no group here called Twelver Shiites.

And it is not true that the Houthis prohibit others from expressing their opinions. If this were true, they would prevent the Salafists from practicing their traditions such as Taraweeh prayer [a prayer done at night during Ramadan after the Al-Esha festival], which does not exist in the Zaydi school.

But if you went to Sa’ada today, you would find the religious traditions of both Zaydis and Salafists performed in their mosques with no problems. They are not going to bring their prayers out of the mosque and argue that our Zaydi School approves of this religious practice. And not only Salafists, but Islahis practice there as well.

There is also hard-core group of Salafists called Muqbil group. They are extremists and they have their school in Damaj, Sa’ada. They carry out their traditions in complete freedom. (Read on …)

Saleh, despite his claim of democratic legitimacy, has always played the religion card to justify himself, his wars and his refusal to share power. The southerners were described since 1994 as Godless because of the adoption of a socialist economic system and gender equality. The Houthis were described as Satanic. State preachers issued a fatwa that declared Houthi blood is free. Various journalists were described as being of the third sex (as well as CIA agents) or orgy enthusiasts.

During the 2006 presidential election, the Egyptian Sheikh al Masiri (also know as al Maribi because his Dar al Hadith offshoot school is in Marib) issued a fatwa during a live nation wide broadcast that voting for the opposition is condemned under Islamic law. Saleh also trashed the protesters on TV because of gender intermingling. (Yemen is the most gender segregated country on earth.)

The Salafi attitude that it is illegitimate to revolt against a Muslim ruler is supported by many Muslim leaders, but not shared by Zaidis; their tenants find it an obligation to oppose an unjust ruler as well as to rule by consultation. Along with the reinterpretation and interaction with others, these principles led the UN in 2002 to highlight the teachings of Imam Ali as a model for Islamic democracy. This Yemen Times article covers the regime’s use of state preachers to reinforce the message that the Yemeni revolution is un-Islamic. However, even al Zindani’s calls for an Islamic state to follow the current tyranny were widely disputed by activists and intellectuals who argued that a civil state is their right as well as a fulfillment of requirements of justice.

Conversely Saleh’s statements in support of jihad and the Iraqi resistance, Yahya Saleh praising the deaths of US soldiers from the stage at Sanaa University and so on, is an extensive topic on its own.

Yemen Times “Obey your leader even if he whips your back and takes your money.”

Since the beginning of the uprising in Yemen, President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s the regime has used a baffling number of ways to try to stifle the revolution.

One of these ways involves using religion to convince Yemenis that demands for President Saleh’s departure is forbidden and illegal in accordance with the Quran and Hadith (statements of the prophet Mohammed).

Saleh’s loyalists and religious sheikhs have intensified their religious activity during the past six months, using mosques and state-run media channels, with the aim of protecting Saleh from being toppled. (Read on …)