SANAA, Yemen, July 12 (UPI) -- A Yemeni court ordered the suspension of the editor in chief of an opposition magazine from work for six months in a new crackdown on unruly journalists.
In addition to being barred from work in the Wahdawi magazine, mouthpiece of the Unionist Nasserite Popular Party, Ali Sakkaf was ordered by the court Wednesday to pay a fine of half a million Yemeni royals ($2,000).
Sakkaf was sued by the defense ministry for publishing information that the leadership of the Republican Guards seized land belonging to citizens in the province of Zumar south of Sanaa, without paying compensation to the owners.
Commenting on the ruling, Sakkaf told United Press International "it is a move that contradicts official speech about respecting press freedoms."
He said "issuing such a sentence at a time the country is preparing for holding presidential elections constitutes a negative indication about the future of journalistic and political work in Yemen."
In another development, the Organization of Yemeni Women Journalists Without Limits strongly denounced a hostile media campaign targeting female journalist Samia Aghbari in the independent al-Dustour magazine.
The organization said in a statement "the campaign is directed against Yemeni women in general and journalists and civilian society activists in particular" and urged al-Dustour's editor in chief to investigate the humiliating and insulting comments published in his magazine against Aghbari.
Al-Dustour, whose editor in chief is a former Baath party member, has been lashing out freely at opposition journalists without legal action against the publication.
