Yemeni authorities have illegally detained journalists Abdul Ilah Haydar Shae and Kamal Sharaf for the past week. They were arrested in Sanaa on August 16 and 17 at a time when government forces are stepping up a military offensive in the south of the country against militants linked with Al-Qaeda.
“The fight against terrorism does not justify the force disappearance of journalists,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The arbitrary and brutal manner in which Shae and Sharaf were arrested amid the current upsurge of violence makes us fear the worst.”
Heavily-armed police in bullet-proof vests arrested Shae at his home on the evening of August 16, at the end of the daily Ramadan fast. They stormed into the house after first surrounding it and firing warning shots. Shae was beaten and insulted in front of his family and was then taken away in handcuffs. All of his personal documents were confiscated. No one knows where he is currently being held.
Shae, who writes about Al-Qaeda for the Saba new agency, was previously arrested on a street in the centre of Sanaa on July 11. After being handcuffed and blindfolded, he was taken to a security centre and subjected to six hours of interrogation, during which he was beaten and mistreated, before being released.
Sharaf, a close friend of Shae who was the only eye-witness of his July 11 arrest and the only person to talk about it openly, was arrested in Sanaa on August 17. He works as a reporter for the Yemeni online newspaper Al-Joumhouriya and as a cartoonist for the website Al-Barakish. He is also a human rights activist who launched a campaign against corruption by means of cartoons on Facebook.
On July 11, Sharaf won the first prize in a competition for cartoons that promote human rights. It was organised by the Centre for Economic Studies and Media with assistance from the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives.
The arrest and detention of Shae and Sharaf violate the Yemeni constitution as the arresting police showed no written order and did not let them speak to their lawyers. The authorities still have not given any legal grounds for holding them. Under the constitution and the treaties Yemen has signed, they should be freed immediately.
