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Swathed in the traditional
black face veil, or niqab, Yemeni women brandish banners with images of
disappeared and imprisoned journalists. Every Tuesday, in
She stands surrounded by
a small circle of male demonstrators, who are enclosed in a larger circle of
women. Sexes are separated, but men listen in silence to Karman’s speech,
occasionally nodding in agreement or applauding when she stops to take a
breath. She radiates confidence. Even the soldiers there to keep watch are
transfixed by her narration, like children watching television; every so often
they jolt back to reality, glance around to see if their superiors are
scowling, stand up straight, and readjust their guns.
On this particular Tuesday,
WJWC is calling for the release of journalists including Muhammad Al-Maqaleh,
editor of Aleshteraki, a Web site that
reported on the conflict in northern
Attacks and kidnappings
of journalists have been on the rise in 2009 and many media outlets have been
closed as
“2009 has been a bad
year for Yemen as a whole with all the political unrest,” Abu Bakr Al-Qirbi, Yemen’s
Minister of Foreign Affairs, said recently in an interview with the Yemen Times. “Unfortunately, that leads
to
CPJ has documented the
persistent harassment of the country’s press this year, including a security
force raid on a newspaper office and the banning
of multiple papers. Journalists have gone missing and been thrown in jail.
“They kidnapped
journalist Muhammad
Al-Maqaleh, and several more journalists have now been in prison for more
than five months,” Karman told me. “This
year alone, State Security has barred
the sale of eight newspapers, blocked
Web sites, and denied us the right to protest.”
Karman’s resentment is not
aimed at the government as a whole, but at State Security, which deals
specifically with political parties and the media. “When we gained NGO status
in 2005, we were called Women Journalists Without Borders,” Karman said. She explained
that State Security “created a twin company with the same name and the same
logo. They took our license and granted it to a fake company.” The group
changed its name.
“Conditions for
journalists are much worse,” she went on. “State Security will also create
twin newspaper companies to block licenses. But they will not only copy the
name. They will employ people to work for them and the papers will be published.”
Karman described how she
has been bombarded with phone calls and text messages threatening to throw her
off the mountains that encircle the ancient city of
WJWC demonstrates in
Oliver Holmes is a freelance writer reporting
from Sana’a,
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