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 The Yemen Journalists Syndicate has appealed to President Ali Abdullah Saleh to intervene and put a stop to the ongoing harassment of local journalists in light of the closure of a newspaper and the pursuit of its editor for arrest. The Public Prosecutor closed down the Al-Rai Al-A’am newspaper with sealing wax on Saturday morning and gave instructions for the immediate arrest of its editor-in-chief Kamal al-Olufi.
Al-Olufi and his paper were convicted on November 25 in a case stemming from the publishing of the Danish cartoons. He was sentenced to one year’s jail time, the closure of the paper for six months, and a ban on him from writing for 18 months. The prosecutor then released the editor from custody pending his appeal.
Al-Olufi expressed his disappointment and frustration with the change of attitude of the Public Prosecutor and the serious actions taken against him. “What does this mean?” al-Olufi asked on phone from his hideout.
“It means we can’t appeal our case while I am free and the paper is working. It means that there’s no safe environment for journalists and media to operate. It means we go bankrupt and stop journalism.”
A group of journalists formed a lobbying network to put all sorts of pressure on the executive authority to cancel the outstanding cases of the three editors and their newspapers.
They urged their union leadership to arrange a massive and open meeting for journalists, parliamentarians, human rights and freedoms activists, NGO and political parties’ representatives at the premises of the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate.
The open meeting will be dedicated to discussing the dangers of the recently issued verdict and the possible verdicts against Yemen Observer and its editor and Al-Hurriya and its managing editor and his assistant.
Mohammed al-Asaadi
The journalists’ lobby network, a movement organized to face the challenges of these particular cases, circulated a petition to be signed by all journalists to authorize any peaceful action by the syndicate members to protest their colleagues’ sentences.
Mohammed al-Asaadi, editor of the Yemen Observer, will hear his verdict in the Danish cartoons case on Wednesday, December 6 at the South West court in the capital, Sana’a. There are fears that al-Asaadi might receive a jail sentence and have his paper shut down.
The editors appealed to all local, regional and international organizations supporting public and press freedoms as well as democracy to stand by them and condemn such irresponsible prosecutions. |
