Government restricts SMS news services

The government has been restricting some SMS news services and blocking certain media websites, said journalists and opposition parties. “SMS news service via mobile networks are facing a legal challenge, and I call on the government to make laws to issue licenses to the companies who want to offer this service,” said Chairman of Yemeni Journalists Syndicate, Nasr Taha Mustafa. Mustafa asked the Ministry of Information to settle the problem of the restricted SMS services with al-Nass Mobile and Without Chains Mobile, in accordance with the journalism law.

The phone companies must apply to the Ministry of Information to get the needed licenses to send news via mobile networks, but al-Nass and Without Chains Mobile have been denied these licenses. September Mobile, however, was granted a license in 2005, said Mustafa. “The blocking of the al-Shora.net and al-Eshtraki.net websites was not done the right way.” Currently, al-Eshtaki.net is back online, but al-Shora is still blocked. “Those websites were blocked for readers inside Yemen, but readers outside the country can browse those blocked sites,” said Mustafa.

Mustafa asked the government to amend the press law, according to the President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s directive issued three years ago. This directive said that the press should have total freedom. The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has denied that it has been narrowing press freedoms by restricting service messages via mobile phone (SMS), and blocking media sites on the Internet. The ministry said in a press release last Sunday that the SMS news service providers have to have an agreement with the Ministry of the Information before they start working.

But the two mobile companies failed to get permission before starting their services, the ministry said. Now, the phone companies must re-apply for licenses, said the ministry. The Ministry of Telecommunications has denied that it has blocked certain websites and said that those sites still exist. The ministry was only seeking to conceal sites that are not in line with Yemeni values and ethics, it said.  The ministry strongly denied responsibility for suspending work on the sites mentioned, although these sites have definitely been impossible to access at times. “These sites do not exist in Yemen Net Company, so we do not have any relation to what is happening,” the ministry said.

The Socialist Net website, the voice of the Yemeni Socialist Party, demanded that the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate play its role in the defense of press freedoms, and to lift restrictions on Socialist Net, which has been blocked without legal justification.  The website said in a press release that the competent authorities at the Ministry of Telecommunications decided to withhold the website at 3:30 pm on Wednesday, May 15, 2007.  The YSP claims that the government blocked their website because it reported on the ongoing war up north in Sa’ada, and about the violations of human rights taking place there. 

MTN’s mobile company is not sending SMS news messages, in response to the ministry’s demand that they not allow these news messages.  The Yemen Observer tried many times to contact Walid Akawi, marketing director for MTN, but was unable to reach him by press time.  Hamid al-Ahmar, the board chairman of Sabafon Company, said that the company is not bound by any legal impediment to providing news service providers, which is provided for under the constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of opinion and of information.   Thus, Sabafon continues to allow news messages on their SMS services. 

The Yemeni Journalists Syndicate announced Saturday its solidarity with al-Nass Foundation for Press and the Journalists’ Foundation Without Chains against withholding its service via phone.   The MTN Company has suspended its broadcast of the service in response to what it called political pressure from the ministry.  Hamdi al-Boukari, a member of the YJS, said that this behavior is not based on legal reference. “At a time when the Syndicate is demanding to raise the liberties of press, we are surprised now that there are men fighting technologies and confiscating people’s rights,” he said. “Such acts do not indicate the awareness of the authorities, and it’s distorting the reputation of Yemen abroad.” 

Ali al-Jaradi, chief editor of al-Nass Newspaper, resigned from the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate on Sunday evening because of special reasons, he said. But al-Jaradi said in a statement to the Observer that his resignation came as a result of the passivity of the YJS, and that the YJS needs strong people to make it more active.  Al-Nass Newspaper condemned in a press release what it called “political discrimination” in dealing with service providers, calling on the YJS, and political and civil society organizations to stop the politicians’ desire to return to the system of tyranny and dictatorship.  Yemen is one of several countries that blocks websites for the social reasons, according to new study prepared by a number of major universities in the world.

Some 25 of the 40 countries surveyed restricted websites for political or social reasons.   The study was conducted by researchers from Harvard, Cambridge, and Oxford universities, as well as from the University of Toronto.  The study pointed out that the censorship imposed for political reasons in China, Iran, Myanmar, Syria, Tunisia and Vietnam. It was imposed for social reasons in Iran, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen, where those states try to block the transmission of sites containing nudity, gambling and homosexuality.

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