Since the end of Yemen's 1994 civil war, the Yemeni government has consistently sought to restrict press freedom. Sadly, for those who would seek to change the country, the last twelve months has seen a steady flow of editors and journalists making their way to the courthouse in order to answer an array of charges under Yemeni’s tough criminal laws. The favoured verdict of the courts is the imposition of a ban prohibiting a journalist from practicing his profession. Decisions such as these have incensed the international community and led to widespread condemnation of the government in Yemen.

In late February, a court banned Jamal Amer, a journalist with the opposition daily Al Wahdawi, from practicing journalism. Amer had been charged with harming public interests, offending King Fahd of Saudi Arabia and damaging relations between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, based on an 10 August 1999 column in which he analysed alleged power struggles within the Saudi royal family during the summer of 1999 and predicted that they would negatively affect the ongoing Yemeni-Saudi border dispute. This unique and grossly unfair prison sentence was finally rescinded following pressure from Yemenite journalists and international press freedom organisations. Furthermore, the newspaper Al-Wahdawi was suspended for 30 days by a Sanaa court for printing the article.

Commenting on the spate of government actions against the media, CPJ executive director, Ann Cooper, said, "The Yemeni government's targeting of independent and opposition journalists shows a worrying indifference to press freedom".

On the 7 March, Article 19 reported that the Al Ayyam newspaper was hauled before the Media Prosecutor to face a complaint lodged against them by the Ministry of Information. The complaint apparently referred to articles published by Al Ayyam on 26, 27 February and 4 March. It has been suggested that this action is part of a campaign being waged against the newspaper, in particular its publishers, by the Chief of Police in Aden. The chief of police is allegedly leading a campaign against the newspaper; in particular, brothers Hisham and Tamam Basharahil, the newspaper's editors.

Following the events in March, on 10 May, the Seera Court of First Instance charged Basharaheel, the editor-in-chief and publisher of the newspaper Al-Ayyam, with a number of charges including, "publishing false information", "instigating the use of force and terrorism" and "insulting public institutions". Basharaheel's trial was adjourned until 31 May.

The accusations are based on an interview with the London-based Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri that was published in Al-Ayyam on 11 August 1999.

In the interview, al-Masri criticised the trial of his son Muhammad who had been convicted of terrorism by a Yemeni court. Al-Masri also criticised the trial of alleged members of the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army, an Islamic group that was accused of kidnapping and murdering foreign tourists in Yemen.

On 15 May, the Basharaheel was charged a second time with breaching the country’s tough criminal laws. The charges stem in part from a 7 February article by Hassainoun, titled, "The Properties of Religious Sects and Social Peace". The article criticized authorities for their neglect and demolition of historical sites in Yemen. Specifically, it attacked the government for demolishing a Nineteenth century synagogue in Aden.

In July, according to witnesses, militant Islamists chased a lawyer as he left a Sanaa court after defending a journalist on trial for blasphemy. The editor, Sameer al-Yousifi, editor-in-chief of al-Thaqafiah was on trial for reprinting a novel alleged to insult God and Islam. According to Reuters, the trial, which has dominated the media in Yemen, was criticised by the information minister for damaging the reputation of the Arab state. The editor was jailed by the court but subsequently released after the information minister intervened. During the trial, the judge banned local journalists from covering the trial and entering the court. The minister also criticised Yemeni religious leaders for attacking journalists and writers as blasphemous.

On 6 August, Saif Haderi, owner and editor-in-chief of the weekly Al-Choumou, was banned from practising his profession for a period of ten months. According to information from inside Yemen, Haderi was convicted of "slandering" the minister, who he had implicated in a corruption case. The court also fined the newspaper US $650 and Haderi US $460 for publishing articles about the trial despite a court prohibition.

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1999 World Press Freedom Review

Silencing the press was par for the course in Yemen in 1999. At one point in May, five newspapers were due to stand trial on various charges. The Yemen Times, Al-Shoura, and Al-Thawra were up for slander; Al-Ayyam for 'inciting separatist feelings’ and Al-Haq for dealing with politically sensitive issues.

The trial of five Britons charged with associating with an armed gang with the intention of committing violent atrocities was a cause for concern in January as the media’s coverage of it was tightly restricted. Speaking to the Birmingham Post a brother of one of the accused questioned the need for a ban if there was nothing to hide. On the third day of the trial the judge decreed that journalists could stay but that they could no longer print detailed reports about the proceedings upon the request of the prosecution in order to "guarantee sound proceedings that would not affect the course of justice".

The BBC reported that a weekly Yemeni newspaper, 26th September, published an article on its website on January 14 on the British media’s critical coverage of Yemen’s support of Iraq during the bombing campaign. The author believed the paper should rather have lauded the country for securing the release of the British hostages, and called for the British media to apologise for their unfair treatment of Yemen in their coverage.

On May 15, the editor of the thrice weekly Al Ayyam, Hisham Basharaheel, and one of its journalists, Ali Haitham al Ghareeb, were charged with instigating "national feuds" and the "spirit of separatism" and also with harming "national unity" for an article published on February 27. The article touched on the sensitive north-south divide in the country, criticising the fact that the north governs the south. On March 2, Ghareeb was taken into custody and held for five days whereas Basharaheel was taken in and questioned for four hours by state prosecutors two day later. CPJ reported that Basharaheel was also charged for publishing an article on the trial of the Britons charged with terrorism.

In a letter to the president Ali Abdullah Saleh on May 17, CPJ brought attention to the crackdown on the media which was prevalent in the first half of the year. The litany of attempts to silence the press took many forms. The arrest of No'aman Qaid Seif, editor of the weekly Al-Shoura, on February 23 was for "disseminating false information" based on an article on the human rights situation in Yemen which was also critical of corruption within the government. He was released after one day to stand trial at a later date. The information Ministry then ordered the same newspaper to be closed for violating the Press Law as it said that there were two newspapers with the same name publishing concurrently. The march 5 edition was also banned for the same reasons.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat, a London-based daily newspaper, was told that the information related to Yemen in its February 27 edition of the newspaper was false; distribution was stopped as a result. In March the newspaper received an all-out ban from the Information Ministry. Circulation continued at the beginning of May.

Al-Haq’s editor Abdel Latif al-Kutbi Omar was arrested on March 2. Reports have it that the arrest came as a result of an article which appeared in the February 28 edition of the paper and detailed how the Yemeni authorities had offered the island of Socotra to the US to be used as a military facility, although no official reason was given for the arrest. He was subsequently released on March 10.

The editor of the independent Al-Shumuaa, Saif Al-Hadheri, was badly beaten when four masked men broke into his home on May 10. He was admitted to a local hospital with multiple injuries. The attack was condemned by the Information Minister.

On July 15 Terry Anderson of CPJ met with Yemen's prime minister Abdel Karim al-Iryani to discuss press freedom violations. The Prime Minister said that he condemned the harassment and threats to journalists but urged journalists to come forward with such complaints saying that proof of such violations was needed before action could be taken.

Amnesty International published a report in July which criticised the human rights situation, especially in relation to journalists and opposition politicians in Yemen. Violations of legal safeguards on arrest, detention and fair trial were common occurrences.

Saudi Arabia and Yemen have an agreement whereby their respective media are not allowed to insult the neighbouring country, so when Al-Wahdawi published an article at the end of October which was seen to be insulting to Saudi Arabia the Information Ministry brought charges against them. Abdul Aziz al-Mansub, editor, and Jamal Amer, the author of the article, were told by the judiciary that they "did not conform to their journalistic duties to refrain from printing unreliable information."

In November the National Post published comments from the editor of the English-language daily, Yemen Times, Walid Abdulaziz Al Saqqaf on the media landscape in Yemen. The editor of the outspoken publication which has a circulation of over 20,000 said "the media is in the hands of the government." Moreover, he remarked that "the opposition press are not given the tools, are blocked, suspended. Media coverage is almost totally dedicated to the ruling party."

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1998 World Press Freedom Review

On May 26, a three-man British Broadcasting Corporation crew were arrested in Yemen. They had travelled to an area where the Bani Dabiyan tribe had kidnapped a British family in April despite being warned by the information ministry not to travel there. The three, reporter Rageh Omar, producer, Robin Barnwell, and cameraman Frank Smith, were charged with violating an article of the press law requiring the media "to respect sovereignty and independence of the country" and prohibiting activity which could threaten its security. The three were acquitted on June 7 by Judge Haikal Ahmed Othman after he viewed the tapes they filmed and listened to witness testimony. He declared that they did not break any laws and were visiting the country legally.

"Yemen believes in the freedom of the press, and the press is a necessity in this age," Othman said before announcing the verdict.

Othman said a Yememi law requiring reporters to advise the government of their movements applies only to resident journalists.

A correspondent for the Aden-based daily Attariq, Awadh Kashmeem was arrested without a warrant on August 8. He was taken to jail by security forces in Dawaan (Eastern Yemen) but released after 30 hours in detention. Kashmeem was accused of "incitement to violence" by the region’s prefect. Awadh was in the process of investigating allegations of embezzlement in the telecommunications sector.

Ali Dahmess, correspondent in Jaar (southern Yemen) for the weekly Athaouri, was arrested by security forces and taken to the Criminal Investigation Department on August 23 according to reports by RSF. Dahmess was given no explanation for his arrest which took place a few days after he wrote an article on the property conflict between two tribes - El Alban and El Alfadhl. The director of the department which arrested the journalist is known to be close to one of the tribes.

Attention was drawn this year to the case of the Yemeni journalist Mohammed Sadek Al-Odai who has been in detention without charge since December 1997. Reports by RSF say that Mohammed Sadek Al-Odai, a reporter for the daily Al Mithaq, was accused of murdering a passer-by while he himself was being assaulted by an unidentified group of men.

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1997 World Press Freedom Review

ONE OF the poorest nations on Earth, the Republic of Yemen - formed in 1990 by the merger of the conservative north and the Marxist south, ending hundreds of years of separation - provides a hostile environment for any journalist trying to report objectively. The most brutal illustration of this harsh climate was the killing of a Yemeni journalist in a shooting incident on May 1, and the sentencing of two journalist brothers to 80 lashes each on May 27.

London-based Amnesty International reported in March 1997 that "in theory, Yemen has made progress in the field of human rights, ratifying the major human rights treaties. In practice, the Yemeni government remains a major violator of the rights protected by these treaties." Amnesty claimed that these violations ranged from political arbitrary arrest to unlawful executions and "disappearances." It added: "The rights of freedom of expression and association are guaranteed by the Yemeni Constitution, but in practice, the exercise of these rights is severely curtailed." The Amnesty report alleged that security forces were torturing suspects and prisoners to gain confessions or as punishment. Flogging and amputation, previously limited to the former Yemen Arab Republic (northern Yemen) became applicable to the whole of unified Yemen after the enactment of a new Panel Code.

Ali Mohammad Ajlan, a Yemeni journalist, was killed and four other people wounded in a shooting incident outside a vote-counting centre on May 1, as fresh violence broke out in relation to Yemen's general elections.

A security official said that there had been an exchange of fire between supporters of rival candidates, but the official statement accused the Islamist Islah Party of firing on the centre: "A journalist was killed when supporters of different candidates shot at each other after vote-counting in Lahaj governorate ... The killing was not caused by an exchange of fire ... An extremist group belonging to Islah attacked the vote-counting centre and opened fire on those present, killing a journalist and wounding four others." At least 21 people were killed in the violence connected with the general election - the first since the brief 1994 civil war.

On May 27, a court sentenced two Yemeni journalists to 80 lashes each after finding them guilty of defaming a leading Islamist politician. Abdullah Saad Mohammed, chief editor of the weekly, al-Shura, and his brother, Abdul-Jabar Saad, were alao banned from practising their profession for a year. It was the first time in recent memory that a Yemeni court had sentenced a journalist to flogging. The sentence is usually carried out in Yemen with a thin wooden stick. The brothers said that they would appeal against the court ruling, which was condemned by Abdul-Bari Taher, head of Yemen's press association. He told Reuters: "The flogging [sentence] is a clear and dangerous message that threatens freedom of the press and of expression." The court also ordered al-Shura to halt publication for six months and fined it 200,000 rials (about US$1,600). The case against the brothers was initiated by Abdul- Majeed al-Zandani, a leader of the Islah party, who filed a suit against them for critical articles that he alleged had defamed him.

In another worrying move, police officers entered the home of Fouad Qaid Ali, a journalist for the independent bi-weekly, Al-Ayyam, and the newspaper, Al Tariq, on April 13 and threatened to break both his legs and those of his wife if he continued to call for a boycott of the general elections. Ali fled into hiding following the threat.

Two newspapers were shut down in Yemen late in 1997. On September 6, the Ministry of Information ordered the closure of the weekly, Al-Haqiqah, after the paper had published an interview with an opposition figure, Abdel Rahman Jaafri, in its September 4 edition.

On October 11, the Ministry confiscated all issues of the latest edition of the official bi-weekly newspaper, Ma'in, and banned the publication indefinitely. The move was apparently related to an editorial written by the paper's chief editor, Abdel Fattah al-Hakimi, entitled "From the revolution of the poor to the poor revolution," which hit out strongly at state policies and prevailing socio-economic conditions in Yemen. Al-Hakimi and has staff were also said to have been dismissed from their jobs.

Some 4,000 copies of the November 19 edition of the bi-weekly, Al-Ayyam, were seized by the police and Political Security agents before they could be distributed in the towns of Al-Mukallah, Seyun and Ashahr. This move appeared to be connected with two front-page news stories concerning recent government arrests of opposition members in Hadrahmawt governorate.