Government vows to unblock websites; Journalists continue to protest media censorship

Journalists and their supporters protest suppression of speech.

The government will stop blocking political websites, said Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Mujawar on Sunday after he met with Nasser Taha Mustafa, the head of the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate, Thabit Saeed Thabit, first deputy of the YJS, and other members of the YJS. The government also agreed to create a new law establishing minimum wages for journalists working in public institutions, in order to provide them with more financial security.  Mujawar also directed the Ministry of Information to create a new law clearly stating the requirements for offering an SMS news service to cell phone subscribers.

Until there is such a law, he suggested, all SMS news services should be suspended. The discussion covered some of the current issues that concern the journalists, including their financial situation, their protests against the blocking of websites, and the SMS services, said Raed Abdul-Wahid, the secretary of the Prime Minister for Information Affairs.  “The PM directed discussions with the Ministry of Information in order to designate a temporary mechanism to organize the work of the electronic journalism, including the news SMS services with Nasser Taha Mustafa,” said Abdul-Wahid. 

However, Thabit objected to Mujawar’s proposal to cancel all SMS news services until there is a law.   “The Prime Minster suggested stopping this service until a law is issued, but we think it is not fair to do that since this service has been available for the past two years,” he said. “So we came to the conclusion to postpone the discussion on this topic, and what is mentioned by the local newspapers and websites that we have disused that is untrue,” he said. The Yemen Observer could not reach Nasser Taha Mustafa by phone before press deadline.  

The meeting between Mujawar and members of the YJS followed a demonstration held in front of the Cabinet building by protesters from all political parties. These protestors also have prayed their Friday prayer in front of the Cabinet building, in order to protest the recent acts against the media, which have included denying issuing licenses to many newspapers, censoring the political websites, and stopping SMS news services.  “We call it the Freedom Prayer,” said Khaled al-Anesi, the executive director of Hood Organization for Defending Human Rights and Freedoms. Al-Anesi felt that this protest represented the peaceful struggle for more rights.

“We demanded the rights to obtain press freedom, as it is mentioned in the electoral program of President Saleh,” he said.  The preacher and the Imam of the Friday prayer was the Islahi MP Fouad Dahaba. “I talked in the Friday Prayer’s speech in general about all the issues that concern the ordinary citizens,” Dahaba said.  Dahaba is a preacher and a religious speaker, who said that he was not speaking as a Member of Parliament, but as someone concerned about human issues.  He also denied that the Parliament politicizes religious rituals to its own advantage.

“Islam does not separate between the religion and the policy and the Friday prayer is set originally to discuss these issues,” he said. “It is not forbidden; and even if it were, would it be more forbidden than the shedding of blood of many citizens in Sa’ada, or somwhow worse than the poor situation that the Yemeni people face,” he said. “I think the democracy that Yemen always sings about, it begs money by it, and is not real democracy,” he said.

Dahaba believed that this strike is one of the elevated forms of peaceful protest against any government action. “The prayer was to show that we have no malicious intentions,” he said.   Tariq al-Shami, the head of the media arm of the General People’s Congress, was completely against the prayer. “It is the right of everybody to pray wherever they like, but not to politicize the purpose of the prayer to make it their own,” he said.

Al-Shami thinks that the journalists are being pushed to achieve the agenda of the Joint Meeting Parties, he said. “Journalism is a very high profession and it should not to be used to achieve the intentions of the JMP,” he said.    JMP spokesman Mohammed al-Sabri said that the protests would continue, and that the Friday prayers would continue, because he doesn’t believe the government would follow through on its promises.  “The problem is that nobody knows who blocked the websites, whether they were governmental authorities or presidential authorities,” said al-Sabri. 

The JMP is totally supporting these protests, said al-Sabri.  “These acts (against the media) go against the promises of the president’ program that allow all to have newspapers,” said Khaled al-Anesi.   A press release faxed to the Yemen Observer last week denied that the Ministry of Information improperly denied licenses to newspapers. “The Ministry of Information completely responds to all the licenses offers,” said the release. The best evidence of that is that there have been two newspapers granted with the license, it said.  Therefore, the newspapers are responsible for the delay because they don’t complete the official procedures, said the statement.

“Or because they might have other intentions,” said the release. It is the same with the news websites; the ministry has to be informed of the new websites, said the release.  However, there are some websites that violate the current laws and violate the government’s privacy.   Some formerly blocked websites, such as eshtraki.net , are now running. “It is now running since May 15,” said Mohammed al-Maqaleh, the editor in chief, “and I am happy for that because this is our right.”

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