In the session, the prosecution accused the two defendants of belonging to an illegal armed gang and supporting the Al-Qaeda network”. According to the indictment, Shaea had attracted foreign mercenaries and urged them to join abovementioned gang to targeting strategic interests and foreign embassies in Yemen .” The court also accused Shaea of “spreading false news and statements via various media outlets in an attempt to promote this criminal gang”. Moreover, the indictment said the second defendant received and copied encrypted messages that had been sent to an email under the name of (singer) and email (Hearing 11) on the website Gmail) belonging to unknown persons. 26 September Net

Zawya: SANAA, Oct 26, 2010 (AFP) – A Yemeni court on Tuesday accused a journalist jailed since August of having served as an adviser to Anwar al-Awlaqi, a radical US-Yemeni cleric wanted by Washington for his ties to Al-Qaeda.

Abdulelah Shaea, 34, appeared at a Sanaa court specialising in terrorism cases alongside another defendant, Abdul Karim Daoud al-Shami, 28, both accused of “belonging to an illegal armed group and supporting the Al-Qaeda network” between 2008 and the summer of 2010.

According to the charge sheet, Shaea “worked as Anwar al-Awlaqi’s media adviser and met with leaders from Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and urged them to target strategic interests and foreign embassies in Yemen.”

The court also accused Shaea of “spreading false news and statements via various media outlets in an attempt to promote Al-Qaeda.”

The journalist said in July that security agents had kidnapped and beaten him up.

Shaea is considered to be one of Yemen’s most knowledgeable journalists on AQAP — Al-Qaeda’s local affiliate — and is known for his close ties to Awlaqi, the jihadist preacher wanted by Washington in connection with a failed attack on a US-bound airliner on Christmas Eve.

“I reject this trial. Its procedures are unfair and I ask the presiding judge to summon those who kidnapped and held me incommunicado for 35 days,” Shaea said from the dock.

RSF: Preposterous Charges

Reporters Without Borders firmly condemns the preposterous charges brought against the Sabaa news agency reporter Abdul Ilah Haydar Shae, whose trial before a special state security court is due to start today, and calls for his immediate release.

A specialist in covering Al-Qaeda, Shae has been charged by the attorney-general with inciting the murder of the president and his son, “belonging to a rebel group seeking to attack the country’s security” and “supporting it through the media and encouraging young people to join it.” His lawyers, who have not been allowed to visit him since his arrest in August, have said they will boycott the trial on the grounds that it is illegal and unjust.

“Shae has been detained in an iniquitous manner that contravenes all the legal principles in force in Yemen and his physical condition has been undermined by mistreatment, torture and solitary confinement,” Reporters Without Borders said. “As a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights since 1987, Yemen should respect his right to a fair trial.”

Initially arrested on a Sanaa street on 11 July, Shae was released after being interrogated for several hours. He was rearrested on 16 August, placed in a Sanaa prison and then taken to a detention centre run by the intelligence services.

According to his lawyers, he bore the marks of blows on various parts of his body when he was taken before a court on 22 September, and one of his teeth was broken. The court ordered him held for another 30 days on the grounds that further investigation was needed. That deadline expired on 22 October.

Reporters Without Borders is also concerned about the continual attacks on journalists, especially by members of the security forces, who should be protecting them.

Al Jazeera cameraman Mohammed Al-Said and correspondent Hamdy Al-Bakary were manhandled by police and briefly detained in the southern city of Aden on 24 October while covering the trial of five men accused of bombing the Al-Wahda sports club in Aden earlier this month. The authorities did not offer any explanation for the incident.

Ghazi Al-Alawi, a member of the staff of the Aden-based newspaper Al-Oumana Al-Ahliya and a correspondent for the Al-Masdar Online news website, was beaten up by gunmen while covering an independence day celebration organized by the secessionist South Yemen Movement in Al-Habilin on 14 October. His camera was broken and he was taken to Radfan hospital for treatment to his injuries,

The assault took place just hours after his newspaper reported that President Ali Abdallah Saleh had met secretly with Ali Mounassar Mohammed, the secretary of the opposition Yemeni Socialist Party in Aden and leader of the South Yemen Movement, who was one of Alawi’s assailants.

Journalist and human rights activist Tawakol Abdulsalam Karman, the head of Women Journalists Without Chains, was detained for three hours on 12 October for organizing and participating in a demonstration in solidarity with residents of the Jaachen neighbourhood in Sanaa who had been evicted by Sheikh Nafedh.

A special court for press and publication matters fined Al-Nass managing editor Oussama Ghalib and reporter Fawzy Al-Kahily 50,000 real (165 euros) on 9 October on a charge of insulting and libelling the head of the Al-Mithaq Foundation for Publications, Adil Mohamed Qaid, by publishing documents in issue No. 20 of 2008 implicating members of the foundation in corruption.

Statement of condemnation to not detain the long head of the Organization of Women Journalists Without Chains, and the attack on Atidip Director of the Organization and human rights activists and itinerant Aldjaashen a sit-in Tuesday

Condemned the Organization of Women Journalists Without Chains of what has happened president of the organization entrusted Salam Kerman, as well as the Executive Director of the Organization Bushra Ababi and dozens of activists and human rights defenders and itinerant Aldjaashen of a barbaric attack by the security of the capital during their participation in the sit-in and march in solidarity with itinerant Aldjaashen on Tuesday, 15/10 / 2010, where long-abuse protesters beating and firing live bullets were assaulted, trust in Kerman, president of the organization and then arrested in the Department of fodder for 3 hours, and the injury of the Executive Director of the Organization of press and human rights activist Bushra Ababi during photographed picketing a shot for rubber led to the burning of her clothes, her burns in the back and her husband, were transferred down to the Republican Hospital, as well as Matardt has dozens of displaced women and their children and their husbands severely beaten with rifle butts and threatened with death and guide weapons to Rwshn and other means of intimidation, with damage to five of the women Aldjaashen been moved two of them to hospital, a Republican, as well as the arrest of 35 someone from the itinerant Aldjaashen still 13 of them held in five police stations in Sana’a, and still detained until the moment of writing this statement, namely:

Ghaleb Mohammad Saeed, Mahyoub Hassan Ahmed, Abdo Mahyoub Hassan, commander Ahmed Qasim, Qasim Asad Hazza, Ahmed Murshid Naji, Fouad Ahmed Naji, Qassem Yahya Noman, Faisal Al Qasim, Advisor to S

Counting, Qassem Yahya Abdel Moez, Qasim Zia, Yahya, Ali Mahyoub pleased, Noman Mohammed Qasim

The Organization of Women Journalists Without Chains, as is the continuation of the war unjust waged by the security services, the government against activists and defenders of human rights and citizens, and major breach affects system of basic rights and freedoms of citizens and the freedoms it holds the Interior Ministry and security personnel responsible for the suppression of protest and attacks on the protesters and the confiscation of the constitutional right of protestors, and prepared serious crimes, no statute of limitations, and renewed its invitation to the Yemeni government to respect civil and political rights of citizens and calls on all human rights defenders to the conviction of this violation to all means of pressure necessary for the protection of activists and defenders of human rights.

Issued by the organization Women Journalists Without Chains 10/15/2010
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Sahwa Net- The Yemeni Journalists Syndicate has denounced repeated violations and abused practiced against journalist Khalid Dhala’. In a statement, it said that these violations increased and became targeting openly his life as he was subjected to a car crash on 13 July 2010. The statement demanded security forces to protect Dala’a, immediately arrest the criminals and bring them to justice

Press release

Jurist information center condemns abuses against journalists, the latest of which was a journalist Khaled Mohsen Dlaq from the threat of his life and he was run over a car driven by unknown persons in the center of the capital Sanaa, which led to suffering a serious injury in parts of his body and was evacuated to hospital in time, which condemns the information center have been exposed jurist journalist Khaled Dlaq it at the same time demanding the Interior Ministry quickly prosecution of offenders and finding them and bring them to justice to receive their just punishment

Issued by the Information Centre jurist Sana
7-8-20010

Free Media : VIENNA, 7 Jan. 2010: The arrest on 6 January of the editor and publisher of Yemen’s Al-Ayyam newspaper, Hisham Bashraheel, has reinforced concerns that Yemen’s high-profile clampdown on militants is being used as a pretext to further suppress media freedom.

Bashraheel was arrested on 6 January, following clashes between police and armed guards of the daily newspaper, in which a policeman and a guard were killed and several others wounded.

The clashes started on 4 January, when police attempted to disperse a crowd, which had gathered outside the offices of Al-Ayyam, based in the southern city of Aden, to protest the banning of the newspaper in May 2009, along with another eight publications, for allegedly inciting separatism in the region.

According to media reports, Brigadier General Abduallah Qairan, head of police forces in Aden, said that on 4 January demonstrators in front of the Al-Ayyam building opened fire on the police, who retaliated.

Bashraheel, however, said that the demonstrators were not armed and were staging a peaceful protest.

Deputy Interior Minister General Saleh Zuari said that 40 members of an Al-Qaeda-linked southern movement armed with Kalashnikov rifles and other weapons were inside the newspaper building and exchanged fire with police, the Yemen Times reported.

Yemeni authorities say they also want Bashraheel to stand trial for his alleged role in the murder of a man in front of Al-Ayyam’s offices in February 2008, when a gunfight broke out between 12 gunmen, who had attacked Al-Ayyam, and the newspaper’s guards. Four of the assailants were injured; one of them died later in hospital, Al-Ayyam reported.

IPI Board Member Fredy Gsteiger, a diplomatic correspondent for Switzerland’s Radio DRS who met with Al-Ayyam editor Bashraheel during a recent trip to Yemen, told IPI today: “Al-Ayyam is one of the very few newspapers in Yemen that owns its own printing press. The government therefore has no possibility to control its publication through the printing process, as it does with many other publications. Al-Ayyam‘s independence, as well as the fact that it is a southern voice, have been at the basis of the government’s pressure on the newspaper.”

Separatist sentiment among the population of the impoverished regions of southern Yemen has caused an upsurge in violence since April 2009. The authorities, meanwhile, have harassed and intimidated journalists and suspended newspapers.

The south of Yemen gained independence in 1967 and was run until 1990, under the name of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, by a socialist government allied with the Soviet Union. Yemeni unification was proclaimed in May 1990. A short civil war in 1994 ended in defeat for separatist southerners.

IPI Board Member Gsteiger said: “Bashraheel told me that the newspaper is not in favour of secession. However, it has been critical of the government’s policies.”

IPI Press Freedom Manager Anthony Mills said: “It appears that the persecution of Al-Ayyam and its editor is in connection with the newspaper’s reporting and is therefore a serious press freedom violation. The Yemeni authorities must understand that, especially during times of crisis, the public has a fundamental right to be informed by an independent press. We urge the authorities to immediately halt their clampdown on critical media, and to ensure that journalists in particular, and the population in general, are guaranteed their universal rights.”

Committee to Protect Journalists: In Yemen, critical journalist disappears
New York, September 25, 2009—The Committee to Protect journalists calls on Yemeni authorities to clarify the circumstances of the disappearance and current whereabouts of Muhammad al-Maqaleh, editor of Aleshteraki, a Web site affiliated with the opposition Socialist Party. Al-Maqaleh was detained by unidentified men on September 18 in Sana’a, according to local news reports.

A local journalist, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, told CPJ that although many independent and opposition Web sites have covered the ongoing military offensive in the northwestern town of Saada, Aleshteraki’s coverage has been the most comprehensive. He also said that the site has been blocked frequently inside Yemen. Al-Maqaleh is vocal critic of the government’s attack on the region, according to local press reports.

Two Yemeni rights groups, human rights group Hud and journalists’ group Women Journalists Without Chains, covered the disappearance on their Web sites. Both directly accuse security forces of being behind the detention. Multiple local news sites also report possible government involvement, citing a history of similar incidents.

“The government must disclose all the information it has about the disappearance of Muhammad al-Maqaleh,” said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Mohamed Abdel Dayem. “Al-Maqaleh was writing critically about the government’s handling of the conflict in Saada.”

Al-Maqaleh’s disappearance came after Aleshteraki posted, on September 15, graphic pictures of civilian victims of airstrikes in the Saada region where the military has been battling rebels, local journalists told CPJ. Since 2004, regular battles have erupted several times between the Shiite al-Huthi rebels and government troops in the northwestern region of Yemen. The rebels accuse the government of neglecting the region and demand more autonomy. The latest round of fighting broke out in mid-August, according to media reports. Dozens of civilians have died and thousands have been displaced, according to humanitarian agencies.

In 2007, plainclothes men in an unmarked vehicle abducted, threatened, and severely beat journalist and editor Abdel Karim al-Khaiwani. At the time, other journalists told CPJ that they believed government agents were behind his detention. CPJ has documented similar incidents in 2005 and 2006.

On Thursday, journalists in Sana’a staged a third sit-in protest demanding authorities disclose the fate of al-Maqaleh, according to local press reports. The sit-ins were organized by the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate. In April 2008, al-Maqaleh was imprisoned for two months for “mocking and insulting the judiciary” after he burst into laughter during trial of renowned Yemeni journalist Abdel Karim al-Khaiwani.

In recent months, media outlets and journalists in Yemen have faced unprecedented attacks by the government after clashes broke out between the military and armed protesters in southern parts of the country in late April. Dissatisfied southerners accuse the government of marginalizing the region. Authorities also instituted extensive censorship and arrested journalists to curb press coverage and silence opposition voices.

The Director of South Youth Forums recieved death threats here in the US.

Raed Qasim Ismail is a political activist and director of the forum and website of the South Youth of Aden, Shababshaib, editor of the Algnoub Alhur Magazine.

Mr. Ismail was threatened during telephone calls, emails and messages received from anonymous persons who ordered him to stop his journalistic activities and close down the South Youth website. The callers said “they” knew where he lived in the US, were monitoring his movements and his continued activity would result in harm to himself and his family both here and in Yemen.

Mr. Ismail said said he is accustomed to such threats, adding that there were attempts by unidentified bodies to hack the website several times.

Despite the death threats by email and telephone, Mr. Isamil confirmed that he will continue to exercise his right of free speech, adding that he is not afraid of such threats, and nor will he be deterred from continuing his career with his (Southern Yemeni) people until their independence.

Mr. Ismail is concerned by the threats that were received by his family in Yemen, noting that the Sana’a regime and his men bear the full responsibility for any harm to him or any one of his family members.

The existance of Yemeni intelligence operatives here in the US is well known, and numerous Yemeni-Americans in the US have been threatened by Yemeni operatives for engaging in their legally protected rights of assembly and speech in the US.

Acting as an undeclared agent of a foreign state is illegal.

YT

None of this is reflected in the draft, which stipulates that the release of information should not damage national security, social peace, national unity, Yemen’s interests and its foreign relations, the national economy, public and private economic interests, or trade and financial interests. Any person seeking or publishing information prohibited by this draft shall be sentenced to six years in jail according to article 71. Such open-ended and loose terms make it difficult to decide what is prohibited and what is allowed, for anything at any time can be simply decided as being against the national interest of the country. Again, the time limit for accessing requested information has been put at ten days, but the draft stipulates that the limit can be extended to 60 days. That is a lot of time.

The National

SANA’A // A draft law on access to information that the Yemeni parliament is scheduled to debate this week has already drawn criticism from journalists and democracy activists who describe it as restricting press freedom.

“This draft law proposed by the government is authoritarian and aims to exercise more restrictions, as it prohibits the search for and publishing of information under several pretexts such as the protection of national security, national unity and the like,” said Marwan Damaj, the secretary general of Yemen Journalists Syndicate, a non-governmental organisation.

The draft law concedes that access to information is one of the basic rights of citizens, but stipulates that the release of information should not damage national security or social cohesion, Yemen’s foreign relations, the national economy and public and private economic, trade and financial interests.

Anyone found breaking these rules could be sentenced to six years in jail.

“Who is to decide this or that information will damage the national security or unity? Such open-ended and loose provisions will make the life of journalists in particular risky and their job difficult. Our job as journalists is reporting the truth and informing the public, but under this draft law, our task becomes a sort of a criminal act,” Mr Damaj said.

A report by Women Journalists Without Constraints, a non-governmental organisation, showed that most violations of press freedom last year were related to news reporting and preventing journalists from accessing information, such as arresting and confiscating cameras from those trying to cover a protest in the capital in November.

Violations jumped last year to 248 cases from 113 in 2007.

“Press freedom in Yemen will continue to be abused and restricted and the public will continue to play a less influential and active role in political and social development unless new legislation securing the right of access to information and circulation is passed,” said the report, which was made public on Saturday.

The Committee to Protect Journalists noted last week that journalists work in precarious conditions in Yemen, where they are subject to criminal charges and censorship from government officials. “A harsh press law set restrictions on coverage of the presidency, state security and religion. Authorities kept particularly tight control on coverage of an insurgency led by tribal and religious figures in the north-western Sa’ada region,” the New York-based group said.

It was continued harassment of journalists that pushed some reporters and human rights activists to call for a new law on access to information.

The idea was picked up by Ali Ashal, an opposition member of parliament, who in November proposed a draft that had been written in consultation with some MPs, journalists and other civil society activists. It was approved by the constitutional and media committees in parliament and then handed to the parliament presidium to consent its debate.

However, the government proposed its own version of the information law, presented it to parliament’s media committee on Saturday.

The move provoked a fierce outburst from some MPs who accused the government of attempting to thwart a progressive draft.

“The government could have commented on the draft but by presenting an alternative one they are trying to thwart the debate,” said Abdulrazak al Hajri, an opposition member of parliament.

Mr al Hajri said the two drafts were drastically different. “The first considers releasing information one of the basic rights of the people while the second deals with information as secrets and taboos,” he said.

Mr Ashal’s draft law states that no official employees should be punished for giving government information to a citizen who requests it, but makes it a crime to refuse to do so, punishable by three months in jail or a fine of US$750 (Dh2,750).

Sadeq al Himyri, the general manager of information services at the National Information Centre, the government agency that drafted the alternative law, defended its version, saying it was meant to organise rather than control information delivery.

Mr al Himyri said the draft law still needed to go through a process of review before it was adopted.

Yesterday, about 70 MPs in the 301-seat parliament said they would reject any information law that was not the one proposed by Mr Ashal. The ruling party holds 85 per cent of seats in parliament.

Issued by: HOOD and WJWC

This is a press release issued by both HOOD and Women Journalists without Chains Organization (WJWC), regarding the attack exposed to the journalist and writer Hussein al-Lasoss by al-Baida province mayor’s bodyguards. Mr. Hussien was barbarically attacked and arbitrarily incarcerated with no legal justification.

Press Release

HOOD and WJWC express their deep concerns about the current miserable health status of Mr. Hussein al-Lasoss, as he is reported to have a serious injury in his head and sustain several contusions on his body as well. Mr. Hussien was barbarically attacked and arbitrarily incarcerated with no legal justification.

Al-Lasoss was kidnapped and beaten by the mayor’s bodyguards of al-Baida province. He was dragged last Thursday to the mayor’s house and then transferred to the Security Administration of al-Baida province’s prison and apprehended there to date. Mr. Hussein al-Lasoss is one of the leading journalists and the editor–in-chief of al-Baida Press website.

HOOD and WJWC also condemn this blatant physical assault and reiterate that this attack was due to his writings about corruption in al-Baida province, and believe that it comes under a systematic and organized campaign targeting writers and journalists.

HOOD believes that Mr. Hussein was attacked because of his opinion which is protected by the Yemeni constitution.

HOOD and WJWC, therefore, urge the Attorney–General to do his entitled legal duty in protecting individuals, particularly journalists from attacks and violations. They moreover call upon Attorney–General to issue an executive order of Hussein’s release and start an unbiased serious investigation with the perpetrators.

As they also call upon the Minister of Interior to proceed an investigation with the participation of Civil Society Organizations and Journalists Syndicate on the assaults and threats subjected to activists, journalists and writers by its security authorities and to take a legal action against those involved in such attacks.

HOOD and WJWC hold both the Security chief the mayor of al-Baida responsible for this attack and call upon the local community to investigate their involvement.

Finally, HOOD and WJWC call for instant release of the leading active journalist and bringing the perpetrators who attacked him and those in responsible for his outlaw detention to justice.

Issued by HOOD and WJWC

Sat. Junaury24, 2009

SANA’A, NewsYemen

Yemeni National Security at the Sana’a International Airport on Sunday barred journalist AbdulKarim from heading for Cairo of Egypt to participate in a conference organized by the National Council for Human Rights in cooperation with the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner.

MP Shawqi al-Qadhi, lawyer Mohammad Naji Alaw, editor of al-Nida weekly Sami Ghalib, former chairman of the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate AbdulBari Taher and rights activist Afra’a al-Hariri were also barred to leave with al-Khaiwani. They condemned this “illegal” demeanor and staged a sit-in at the airport for hours.

Rights activists said the airport security’s behavior was a violation of laws and constitution as al-Khaiwani has been pardoned by President Saleh and all convictions against him have been canceled.

A source in the National Security said that banning al-Khaiwani from travel was on a request of the Passports Department at the airport.

Head of Yemeni Lawyers Syndicate, Abdullah Rajeh, said nobody has the right to prevent al-Khaiwani from traveling after he was given an amnesty for all charges against him.

The Arab Sisters Forum has condemned this “aggressive” action against al-Khaiwani who has become free after the president’s pardon.

the GPC journalists are getting a raise, non-governmental journalists earn as little as $100/month

Plenary meeting for the GPC media men expected to be attended by about 400
Monday, 18-August-2008 al-Motamar: Under patronage of president Ali Abdullah Saleh , President of the General People’s Congress (GPC) a plenary media meeting will be held on Tuesday with participation of GPC media men working for the different media instruments of the GPC, and those working for the media and press of the political parties members in the national alliance.

An official source at the GPC sector for intellect, culture and information has made it clear that that the meeting to be attended by more than 400 journalists aims at assessing and unifying the information address of the GPC in the present stage in pursuit of achieving the national and organisational strategies undertaken by the GPC and contributing to winning development dues, enhancing the role of the media t6hat defends the national gains and democratic process.

The source said this organisational demonstration constitutes a tradition that the GPC would hold in a periodical manner that would help enhance bonds of communication and guarantee periodical assessment of the GPC press performance. The source added the participants would discuss a group of organisational documents and studies concerned with information and means for enhancing its national message that expresses hopes and ambitions of the Yemeni people who granted the GPC their confidence in parliamentary, presidential and local elections.

The meeting is also going to discuss a number of organisational, national and professional concerns in the manner serving to raise the level of media performance and preserve rights of journalists as well the professional legislations organizing the relations among all communication parties.

The source also expects that the meeting will come out with a strategic vision regarding the information address of the GPC and resolutions and recommendations accommodating all visions and treatments and means of developing the professional performance of the GPC press.