Yemeni journalist Fouad Rashid has been arbitrarily arrested in Al-Mukalla, a city 500 km east of Sanaa that is the capital of Hadramaut provinceaccording to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF).
The editor of the Arabic-language news website Al-Mukalla Press, Rashid was arrested on the street on the morning of January 10 and was taken to the headquarters of the city’s plain-clothes police. RSF has learnt that the head of the Al-Mukalla journalists’ union was able to talk with him for nearly two hours on the evening of January 19.
Born in 1970, Rashid used to be a member of the staff of the newspaper Al-Massila and to write for the newspaper September 26 before founding Al-Mukalla Press, which has regularly covered the unrest in the south of the country. He was previously arrested on May 4, 2009 and was held without trial for more than a year, finally being released on the justice minister’s orders on May 26, 2010 .
Ilah Haydar Shae, a journalist who was arrested on August 16, 2010, is meanwhile still in solitary confinement in an intelligence service prison in Sanaa, where he has refused to attend several recent hearings before a special state security court because he disputes its legality.
Shae is also challenging the legality of his arrest in August and a previous arrest on July 11, insisting those response for these arrests, which he regards as cases of “forced disappearance,” are the ones who should be prosecuted.
