Yemen May 21, 2009

H.E. Abdullah Ali Saleh
President
Office of the President
Al-Qasr Street
Sana'a
Republic of Yemen

Your Excellency:

The Overseas Press Club of America objects strenuously to your crack-down on the independent press in Yemen, and asks you to immediately suspend attacks on the press by your military units.

Since the beginning of May, it has been reliably reported that your government imposed week-long bans on publishing by eight independent newspapers, asserting that their reporting was “harming national unity.” Nothing could be further from the truth. By seeking to suppress professional reporting of what we understand are deep-seated regional differences within your country, you only nurture distrust of official statements, and encourage parties on all sides to promote their goals through rumors and baseless accounts of conflicts.

According to Human Rights Watch, attacks on your independent press have escalated in the last two weeks. They include:

▪ The seizure and burning of delivery trucks on May 1 and 3 that belong to al-Ayyam, the popular independent daily.

▪ An attack on the headquarters of al Ayyam on May 12 by government troops, who clashed with demonstrators who sought to have the newspaper re-open after being banned from publishing by your government.

▪ The creation and approval of a new media court, set to open on May 16, that would try press cases swiftly.

▪ The arrest of two influential bloggers. Yahya Bamahfud, blogger and former editor of the Hadharamaut news site in the city of Mukalla, and Fuad Rashid, editor of the Mukalla Press Web site, were both arrested in security raids in which their computer equipment and documents were seized.

Local journalists told the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists that the most important target of the crack-down is Hisham Basraheel, the editor of al-Ayyam, who has led coverage of protests against the government by dissidents from south Yemen and whose newspaper has published pictures of clashes in which three persons were killed.

The Overseas Press Club of America is an independent organization of journalists that has been defending press freedom around the world for seventy years. We understand that the clashes were in part designed to protest the joining of North and South Yemen fifteen years ago, and that some South Yemen factions feel their interests in the oil-rich area have been neglected. We also understand from reporting of Reuters and others that your government has expressed legitimate concerns about the revival of al Qaeda militant factions in the south, and that your security forces have been alerted to look for terrorist movements.

We agree that those developments, if true, raise serious concerns about national security. But we fail to see how suppressing and muzzling the press even with partial bans of publication serves your interest. On the contrary, a vigilant and independent press can be your ally by adding independent confirmation to your concerns and can help win international support for your efforts.

Your Excellency, your nation has signed international agreements guaranteeing free expression as part of broad-based human rights codes. We refer to the Arab Charter on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Yemen’s current and past harassment of journalists runs counter to those codes. We urge you to disband the special media court, lift all bans on publication, and order your security forces to dis-engage from further attacks of any kind on the press.

Respectfully yours,
Robert J. Dowling
Larry Martz
Freedom of the Press Committee

cc:

H.E. Abd al-Wahhab Abdallah al-Hajri
Ambassador of Yemen to the U.S.A.
Embassy of the Republic of Yemen
2600 Virginia Avenue, NW (Suite 705)
Washington, DC 20037
Fax: (202) 337.2017

Ambassador Abdallah al-Saidi
Permanent Representative
Permanent Mission of the Republic of Yemen to the United Nations
413 East 51st Street
New York, NY 10022
Fax: (212) 750.9613

H.E. Stephen A. Seche
U.S. Ambassador to Yemen
Embassy of the United States of America
Sa'awan Street
Sana’a
Yemen
Fax: (011.967.1) 30.31.82

The Editor
The Yemen Times
editor@yementimes.com