Despite Saleh departure plan, supporters and security forces still targeting journalists

January 7, 2012, Yemen Post --

December was a particularly black month for media freedom violations in Yemen although President Ali Abdallah Saleh agreed to a plan proposed by Gulf Cooperation Council in Riyadh on 23 November under which he is to stand down as president in February.

Reporters Without Borders firmly condemns the continuing violations and urges the international community to intercede. December was above all marked by violence by government troops and Saleh supporters against journalists covering the “March for Life,” which set off from Taiz, a city 270 km south of the capital, on 20 December.

There were many attacks on the marchers on 24 and 25 December as they arrived at the Sanaa district of Dar Salm. Security forces opened fire on the crowd. At least 13 demonstrators were killed and 50 were wounded. Journalists were among the victims. Among other demands, the protesters had been calling for President Saleh to be prosecuted for his use of violence against earlier demonstrations.

On 24 December, Ahmed Al-Mussibli, a journalist with the opposition TV station Suhail TV, was beaten and arrested by security forces, and was held overnight. BBC correspondent Abdallah Ghorab narrowly avoided being arrested. Suhail TV cameraman Kamal Al-Mahfadi and reporter Walid Ablan sustained serious head injuries.

Ahmed Al-Jabar, a member of the Yemeni Journalists’ Syndicate and reporter for the state-owned Saba News Agency, was hit in the face with a rifle butt by a Saleh supporter, sustaining an injuries below one eye. Soldiers also broke the windows of the car that members of the Journalists’ Syndicate were using to cover the march.

Three journalists – Samia Al-Aghbary, Arwa Abdu Othman (a writer) and Marwan Ismail, who works for the Imanate news website – were accosted and arrested by members of the Republican Guard at a checkpoint on Sanaa’s 50th Street while accompanying the March for Life on 24 December. Two activists who were with them, Marwan Al-Wajihi and Nabil Soua’i, were also arrested. The soldiers searched their car and took their mobile phones and three cameras. All five were released that evening.

Earlier this week, a group of gunmen tried to storm the Press Foundation in Taiz for the third time in three days on 2 January in defiance of clear instructions from the province’s governor. The foundation’s headquarters is located near the military police building and just a few metres from the provincial security directorate.

Nasser Taha Mustafa, a former head of the Journalists’ Syndicate, was threatened in late December by Tarek Mohamed Abdallah Saleh, President Saleh’s nephew and commander of his personal guard, over his articles in support of the revolutionary movement.

Two journalists with the 26 September newspaper, Ali Ghaleb Al-Harazi and Yahiya Al-Sadmi, were threatened for calling for the resignation of the newspaper’s editor, Ali Hassan Al-Chatr, who has a reputation for high-handed treatment of his employees and has had some of them thrown in prison in the past. The journalists began a sit-in at the newspaper to demand Chatr’s departure.

Firing in the air, gunmen in civilian dress attacked an Al-Alam TV crew at around 2:15 p.m. on 23 December in Al-Qaedi, a neighbourhood on the outskirts of the capital. They grabbed cameraman Mohamed Hamran’s camera, hit him, took his identity card and, threatening to shoot the tyres of their car, forced the journalists to return to the city centre.

Armed baltajiyas (pro-Saleh thugs) stormed the headquarters of the government newspaper in Sanaa on 20 December, threatening journalists at gunpoint and stopping the next day’s issue from coming out. The raid was prompted by new information minister Ali Al-Umrani’s decision to rename Hassan Abdel Warath as the editor of the newspaper, which is published by the “Revolution for the Press” foundation. Warath had resigned at the height of the anti-Saleh protests.

Gunmen burst into the office of the Arab Information Agency in Sanaa on the night of 13 December, pointing their firearms at its director, Issam Al-Khaled, and his employees. The office houses more than a dozen Arab and international TV stations and news agencies.

The prosecutor’s office ordered the journalist Omar Al-Amuqi’s release on 8 December on the grounds that there had been no justification for his arrest two days before.

The journalist Abdelhakim Thi’il was freed at the end of December after being kidnapped in October and held incommunicado for two months in a national security prison operated by the intelligences services. His whereabouts were unknown until 12 December, when he was transferred to a regular prison centre and the head of the Journalists’ Syndicate, Marwan Damaj, was able to visit him.

The precise reasons for his abduction and detention are still unknown. The authorities examined his computer and found photos and videos of baltajiyas and gunmen attacking and killing demonstrators in Sanaa’s Change Square.

Millions Protest demanding release of youth revolution detainees in Yemen
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January 7, 2012, Yemen Post Staff

Youth revolution in Yemen warned on Friday security forces loyal to President Saleh that they will continue protesting if all detainees in secret prisons are not released from the National Security and the political Security prisons.

Protests calling to free prisoners took place in 15 Yemeni provinces fetching more than one million marchers nationwide.

Human rights organizations reported that more than 2500 detainees of Yemeni revolution youth were arrested due to their effective role in the protests in Yemen and lasting for more than 10 months.

A number Human rights organizations confirm that hundreds of young supporters of the revolution since the revolution broke out against the regime of outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh last year.

Demands for the release of detainees increased in the recent period after rising calls for humanitarian organizations, local and international, including being exposed to the detainees in the prisons of the work and methods of torture, some of which led to the deaths of a number of them by torture, which is a violation of human rights.

The mass gathering of Yemeni protesters who used to gather each Friday, named this Friday the "Freedom of Detainees" in solidarity with young people detained in many prisons due to their participation in protests and demonstrations that swept Yemen during the year 2011.

Youth of revolution in Yemen vowed to prosecute all those involved in killing, injuring, abducting and arresting a lot of Yemeni youth.

In the capital Sana'a, hundreds of thousands of residents of the capital participated in the Friday "Freedom of Detainees" to emphasis on the trial of those involved in violence against youth.
They have confirmed that security and military organizations led by officers close to President Saleh are the main responsible of abductions and torture of hundreds of youth in all Yemeni provinces.

Yemen VP threatens to leave Sana’a

7/1/2012 -

Alsahwah.net –

Yemen Vice President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi has threatened to leave the capital, Sana’a, and travel to Aden in case interventions in his powers lasts, an Emirate newspaper, Al-Khaleej said on Saturday.

The newspaper said Hadi informed the international mediators that some of Saleh’s cronies attempt to intervene in his powers included in the GCC-brokered deal in order to break down the agreement.

Meanwhile, Yemeni army sources have accused the outgoing president Ali Abdullah Saleh of breaching the GCC-mediated power transfer deal, hinting to his meeting with what is called the supreme security committee on Thursday.

In a press release, Leadership of Revolution Supporters affirmed that Saleh tries to provoke his Vice President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadhi and the newly-formed reconciliation government through his illegal behaviors.

It considered his recent meeting was among a series of violations to the GCC-brokered deal Saleh committed, calling the GCC states and all other concerned states to stop Saleh's maneuvers and violations.

Many Yemeni politicians and analysts suspect that hat Saleh is serious about leaving power.

Saleh in November signed a deal put forward by Yemen’s powerful Gulf neighbors and backed by the United States, agreeing to pass power to his vice president in exchange for immunity from prosecution for alleged crimes he committed while in office.

Yemeni protesters demand release of detainees

Khaleej Times, (AFP) 6 January 2012 SANAA —

Yemenis demonstrated across the country on Friday demanding the release of activists detained in almost a year of protests against veteran President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Tens of thousands demonstrating in Sanaa chanted “freedom to the detainees,” a slogan chosen by protest organisers for demonstrations in 18 cities across the impoverished nation.

“O, great Allah, free every detainee,” they chanted at Sitin Street, close to Change Square — the focal point of anti-Saleh protests.

Protesters say detainees are mostly held by the political security and national security bodies, which are controlled by people close to Saleh, who has bowed to world pressure and agreed to leave following presidential elections in February.

A Gulf Cooperation Council initiative, signed by Saleh in November after more than 10 months of mass anti-government protests, forced Saleh to hand power to Vice President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi.

The plan also gave Saleh and his closest aides and relatives immunity from prosecution for alleged crimes committed against Yemenis in months of unrest that left hundreds of people dead and thousands more wounded.

It also allowed Saleh, who has ruled Yemen for more than 33 years, to retain the title of honorary president until he formally resigns after the elections.

The United States said Wednesday it would hold Saleh accountable for transitioning power after elections, after he canceled a planned trip to America which said would admit him only for medical treatment.

A senior Yemeni official said on Wednesday that Saleh had now decided to stay in the country until after the presidential elections.

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