Around the world, 122 journalists were in prison at the end of 2004 for practicing their profession, 16 fewer than the year before. International advocacy campaigns, including those waged by the Committee to Protect Journalists, helped win the early release of a number of imprisoned journalists, notably six independent writers and reporters in Cuba.
The emergence of outspoken private and party newspapers following the unification of North and South Yemen in 1990 has set the country apart from many of its neighbors in the Persian Gulf, where the press remains tightly controlled. Yemeni papers are notably opinionated and not shy about confronting the government. But the government’s record on…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is concerned about a proposed bill governing the Yemeni press syndicate, or journalists’ union. The bill, which Parliament is scheduled to debate within the next few days, contains several articles that run counter to internationally accepted norms of free speech.
The Arab world continues to lag behind the rest of the globe in civil and political rights, including press freedom. Despotic regimes of varying political shades regularly limit news that they think will undermine their power. Hopes that a new generation of leaders would tolerate criticism in the press have proved illusory, with many reforms…
While the press is largely free within Israel proper, the country’s military assault on the Occupied Territories fueled a sharp deterioration in press freedom in the West Bank and Gaza during much of 2002. Despite vocal international protest, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) committed an assortment of press freedom abuses, ranging from banning press access…
In a region where oil-rich monarchies abhor dissent, Yemen’s press is relatively open and diverse, with numerous opposition and independent publications and journalists who do not avoid criticizing government officials or policies. However, the Yemeni press still faces criminal prosecutions, newspaper closures, arbitrary detentions, and threats from security forces.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about recent incidents of official legal harassment of the press in Yemen. On July 9, three journalists–Faisal Mukarram, a reporter for the London-based Al-Hayat daily, Ahmed al-Hajj, a reporter with The Associated Press, and Khaled al-Mahdi, a correspondent for Deutsche Presse Agentur–were summoned by a state prosecutor and accused of violating article 103 of the press law, which bans journalists from publishing “any secret document or information that might jeopardize the supreme interests of the country or expose any of its security or defense secrets.”
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is writing to protest the ongoing detention of free-lance journalists Ibrahim Hussein and Abdel Rahim Mohsen. On June 21, plainclothes police officers arrested Hussein the office of the Yemeni Unionist Party, according to CPJ sources. Mohsen was arrested at his home on May 23.