Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the shocking abduction and assault of a Yemeni newspaper editor this week in the capital, Sanaa. Four men seized Jamal Amer, editor of the weekly Al-Wasat, as he returned home from his office at 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday. Amer told CPJ that the men bundled him into a waiting car, blindfolded and bound him, and, after changing cars, drove him to a desolate area outside of the city. Amer said the men beat him with their fists and accused him of getting funding from the U.S. and Kuwaiti embassies, Amer said. One of the men warned him about defaming unspecified “officials.”
AUGUST 23, 2005 Posted: August 29, 2005 Jamal Amer, Al-Wasat ASSAULTED Four men seized Amer, editor of the weekly Al-Wasat, as he returned home from his office at 5:30 a.m. Amer told CPJ that the men bundled him into a waiting car, blindfolded and bound him, and, after changing cars, drove him to a desolate…
Dear Ambassador Al-Hajjri: The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the continuing detention of two Yemeni media support staff members, Munif and Naif Damesh, who now have been held without charge for over a month. We wrote to Minister of Interior Rashad Muhammad al-Alimi on April 21, requesting Yemeni officials make public the reason for their detention. We have not received a reply to that letter.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned about the ongoing detention of three Yemeni media support staff, who have been held without charge since early this month. On April 3, Yemeni authorities detained freelance reporters James Brandon and Shane Bauer; bothers Munif Damesh and Munaf Damesh, who were working as fixers; and their uncle, Naif Damesh, who was working as the driver. The five men were detained at an army checkpoint while leaving the northern Yemeni city of Saada, where they had been reporting on fighting between the Yemeni army and fighters loyal to rebel Badreddine al-Hawthi. They were then taken to the offices of Yemen’s Political Security Organization in the capital Sanaa.
New York, March 23, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes today’s presidential pardon of a Yemeni editor who was jailed for nearly seven months for publishing opinion articles that strongly criticized the government. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh pardoned Abdelkarim al-Khawiani, editor of the opposition weekly Al-Shoura, a spokesman for Yemen’s embassy in Washington, D.C.,…
New York, March 22, 2005—An appeals court in Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, today upheld a one-year prison sentence imposed on the editor of an opposition weekly that published opinion pieces harshly critical of the government’s fight against a rebel cleric. The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the ruling and called for the editor’s release. Abdelkarim al-Khaiwani,…