The Yemeni Journalists Syndicate organized a showing support meeting for prisoner journalist Mohammed al-Maqaleh to be freed, last Thursday. In the meeting, the syndicate’s general secretary, Marwan Damaj conveyed what happened during his difficult meeting with al-Maqaleh. Activists, journalists, lawyers, media representatives and civil society representative attended the meeting, expressing their ultimate support for releasing al-Maqaleh who disappeared then in jailed almost five months ago.

According to Mr. Marwan Damaj, al-Maqaleh was and is still exposed to severe torture in his presentment. Damaj had a rare meeting with al-Maqaleh in one of the nyaba’s (don’t know its meaning! Call me plz about this) branches in Sana’a where al-Maqaleh told Damaj about the torture he is experiencing that varied from hitting, depriving him of food, scaring him twice by putting him to be on fake execution. In addition, Damaj expressed his shock by seeing how pale and skinny al-Maqaleh got to be. “He went through hunger strike for 16 days to protest against the torture he was receiving. He looked very pale and very skinny. He was many times questioned on his writings and got so severely beaten that his blood of biting is still in his clothes. He is in a dangerous situation,” said Damaj.

The syndicate calls for hospitalizing al-Maqaleh as soon as possible.

Mr. Gamal Anam, president of Freedom Committee, expressed his condemn on al-Maqaleh’s jail and the way it has been done. “We are saddened by what al-Maqaleh is facing and how this embodies violation of press freedom. In particular, al-Maqaleh’s case has been a very sensitive one since his jail was preceded by disappearance.”

“We are rigorously working with international organization to tackle the issue immediately. On Saturday we will come to an action to be done,” added Anam.

This meeting comes as a part of several previous activities by groups of journalists who repeatedly demonstrated condemning the prosecution of the editor-in-chief of al-Eshtraki Net Mohammad al-Maqleh, an author and editor of the opposition Yemeni Socialist Party’s news website aleshteraki.net.