Yemen

A Yemeni reporter is being held without charge after being arrested on Sunday while covering clashes between security forces and separatists in Yemen’s southern province of Dhala, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local news reports. The arrest is the latest attempt by the government to silence media outlets and journalists covering civil unrest in the...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) on Tuesday condemned the decision of a court specialising in press offences that sentenced journalist Munir Al-Mawari of independent weekly Al-Masdar in his absence to two years in prison for libelling President Ali Abdallah Saleh and also banned him for life from working as a journalist. The newspaper’s editor, Samir Jubran, was sentenced in the same case on...

The newly established Press and Publications Court in Sana’a sentenced Munir Mawari, a Washington-based Yemeni journalist and contributor to the independent weekly Al-Masdar, to two years in prison on charges of defaming the president, journalists told the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The court also barred him for life from practicing journalism in Yemen. The court handed...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on Yemeni authorities to clarify the circumstances of the disappearance and current whereabouts of Mohammad al-Maqaleh, editor of Aleshteraki, a website 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...

A leading editor in Yemen has been abducted by security forces. The Yemeni Journalists Syndicate (YJS) says that they are concerned for the safety of Editor Mohammed al Maqaleh who was allegedly abducted on September 17 in apparent retribution for reporting on the Sa'ada War. Al Maqaleh is the editor for the opposition Socialist Party's website, Al Eshteraki. On Wednesday last, al Eshteraki...

Death threats have been made against the Al-Jazeera in Yemen. Murad Hashem, Al-Jazeera's bureau chief in Sana'a, told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that on Sunday morning an unknown caller contacted his office and left a threatening message with his secretary that said: "Tell the bureau chief that his death is imminent. By God, we will get to him [even] at his home," the caller said...

The Yemeni government's crackdown on independent media now extended to satellite television stations, according to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI). Al-Jazeera was the first to be targeted after a ruling party official, Mossaad Allahbi, called for the closure of the local Al-Jazeera office for allegedly broadcasting news "hostile to the unity and security of Yemen." The...

A Yemeni court has found journalist Anis Mansour from suspended daily Al-Ayyam guilty of "harming national unity, provoking sedition and rebellion, and ‎inciting people in the streets" and "taking part in unauthorised protests and promoting ‎secessionist slogans." He was sentenced on Wednesday to 14 months imprisonment, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. The case was...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on the government of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to end censorship of independent newspapers and to identify and prosecute those who assaulted Al-Jazeera journalists on two occasions in the south of the country. Yemen's popular daily, Al-Ayyam, the weeklies Al-Nida and Al-Watani, as well as five other independent newspapers, were banned...

Yemeni security forces raided the Aden compound of the country's most popular independent newspaper on May 13, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. One passerby was killed. Just before noon, a group of security forces clashed with guards at the offices of Al-Ayyam, firing teargas and bullets and wounding at least two guards and killing the passerby, according to local and...