News Censorship in Yemen

Yemeni security forces confiscated copies of Ahdath al-Madina , a local independent newspaper, on 7 August.

Security forces seized the paper from newsstands in order to stop its distribution on the national level.

According to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), security forces regularly remove newspapers in order to suppress the public's growing frustrations with President Saleh.

About 100 journalists have protested in the Yemen capital against harassment and censorship by authorities.

The protest was held outside the Sana'a residence of the vice-president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who is acting head of state while the president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, is in Saudi Arabia recuperating from wounds he sustained in an attack on his compound.

The demonstration is part of wider anti-government protests that have been going on for more than four months, demanding an end to Saleh's rule.

One newspaper editor, Osama Ghaleb of al-Nass, said he was forced to distribute the daily to other provinces in banana boxes to ensure the copies would not be confiscated by security. But unfortunately this method has now been exposed, he said.

The Centre for Rehabilitation and Protection of Freedom of Press in Yemen has documented 465 cases of harassment of journalists in the past six months, which include threats, aggression, and detention. Calls by journalists to meet with the vice-president have gone unheeded, according to the head of Yemen's journalists' syndicate, Marwan Damaj.

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Yemeni authorities' seizure of equipment enabling the pan-Arab satellite news channels Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera to broadcast live from the country.

The move came after both channels had broadcast clashes between police and protesters in the southern town of Daleh, as well as rallies in the north against the crackdown. The stations can still report and transmit taped coverage.

We condemn this arbitrary seizure and ask the authorities to allow Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya to resume their live broadcasts without delay, said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Mohamed Abdel Dayem. To suddenly assert that the confiscations are due to lack of authorization is not credible given than both channels have been broadcasting from Yemen for years without such a claim by authorities.

Al-Arabiya's bureau chief in Sana'a, Mahmud Munassar, told CPJ that his employees were briefly detained and questioned. He called the raid an intimidation tactic designed to silence the channel's coverage of Yemen. Al-Arabiya received the green light from the president of the republic in 2009 to bring live broadcasting equipment into Yemen, Munassar told CPJ. The Sana'a government is clearly trying to cover up its policies in the south.

There should not be a pre-censorship on journalism in Yemen because the measure ended when the reunification of the south and north took place in 1990, Information Minister has said.

At a conference organized by the Information Ministry at its former headquarters in Sana'a, Hasan Al-Lawzi said exercising freedom of expression must result in respecting the others' rights.

The ministry does not prevent obtaining licenses for newspapers, but some are long-processed due to necessary legal procedures, he claimed.

On halting some publications, Al-Lawzi said the papers blocked committed grave mistakes that they published anti-unity rhetoric and harmed special figures. Hence, the ministry took legal measures over violations by the newspapers under its responsibility to protect the people and the country.

After confiscating thousands of copies of a critical independent newspaper, authorities laid siege today to the paper's offices in Aden, Yemen. The daily, Al-Ayyam, has been covering the ongoing conflict in the country's southern region.

Bashraheel Bashraheel, general manager of Al-Ayyam, told CPJ that after three consecutive days of authorities confiscating thousands of copies of the newspaper, security forces today surrounded Al-Ayyam and prevented the distribution of all 70,000 copies of the paper. Staff members are allowed to leave the building but are being searched as they exit, Bashraheel said.

We call on the authorities to end the siege of Al-Ayyam and to withdraw all its forces immediately, said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, CPJ's Middle East and North Africa program coordinator: Al-Ayyam and its staff are exercising their journalistic duty to cover an ongoing conflict. The government must not target them because of their coverage.

Dozens of protesters gathered today in front of the besieged paper's offices to protest the government's action, with the police eventually dispersing the demonstrators, Al-Ayyam reported on its Web site.

Bashraheel told CPJ that in light of the government's actions and to curb financial losses he has been forced to suspend printing of Al-Ayyam indefinitely.