Family of Yemeni blogger accused of blasphemy are living in turmoil and ‘horrified’ at prosecutors’ demands

Yemen journalism prosecution demands excution of blogger accused of balsphemy

The family of Ali al-Saidi, who was accused of blasphemy, have expressed their dissatisfaction and horror of the demands of the journalism and publication prosecution. “I’m scared to death and so worried for what happened to our family of disturbance and instability when falsely accused our household of blasphemy and of retreating of Islam,” said al-Saidi’s wife.


“We are really scared of the consequences of such accusations and we hope from our god and from the court to bring the issue back to its right track,” she added.

Yemen Observer visited the accused person and his family in their home at Bab Shoob in Sana’a. Inside al-Saidi’s house, a wall was covered with Quranic verses, and on one of the walls there was a large poster of the al-Haram al-Madani “the prophet’s Mohammed’s mosque.

  Sitting before the large poster, al-Saidi’s 78 old father said that he was pretty sure that his son Ali did not violate Islam or commit any sort of blasphemy.  The special court of journalism and publications last Sunday adjourned its verdict against Ali al-Saidi who was accused of blasphemy until January 7, 2013 to announce the court’s final verdict. 

The journalism and publication attorney has demanded the execution of al-Saidi for only believing in Quran as the main source of Islamic rules, accusing him of ignoring the Sunnah and consequently of retreating of Islam.

The attorney also demanded to terminate al-Saidi from his post as the General Director of planning department at the Supreme Judiciary Council and to divorce him from his wife. Al-Saidi’s father who is a Zaidi religious scholar said that his son has been calling for implementing and following Quran that is the holy book that ‘came from Allah”.

“The people that accused my son of blasphemy have been using Islam for personal and partisan purposes,” said al-Saidi’s father. He said that these people wanted to remove his son from his job so they “resorted to such accusations to get rid of him”.

Al-saidi’s mother said she was so worried about her only son because of “false and irrelevant accusations despite that he is a good Muslim that prays five times a day and applies all Islamic rules.”  

  Mohammed,21, eldest son of al-Saidi, said accusing his father of balmphsy has disturbed his daily life.

“They fabricated this accusations so as to fire my father from his work,” said Mohammed. “

This incident disturbed our life to the extent that I cannot even study or think about my daily life’ issues,” he added. About the public reaction to the accusations against his father, Mohammed said that all their neighbors, have been showing sympathy and support for his father because they know he is a good Muslim and that the people that accused him of blasphemy just wanted to impose their own sectarian believes on other sect’s followers.

“All our neighbors including women came with us to the court to express their solidarity with my father,” said Mohammed. Seventeen year old Ibrahim Ali al-Saidi said the issue has affected negatively on his life and on his schooling as his marks dropped down drastically.

“I cannot study or think well as my mind is always disturbed, thinking about my father and about our future,” said Ibrahim. Ali al-Saidi said that his articles on the face book has nothing to do with blasphemy as they all calling for “resorting to the Holy Quran , to read it, understand it and never violate it”.

 Al-Saidi’s father said it was dangerous to impose on people thoughts and beliefs of certain sects.  Al-Saidi believes that the court would issue a fair verdict because he never violated Islam and that there were no blasphemy whatsoever. 

Writer and Journalist Ali al-Bukhaiti said he attended the trial of al-Saidi and did not find that he had ever made any blasphemy or violated Islam. “Al-Saidi may have violated Islam according to the beliefs of the ‘people who accused him’, but he never violated divine Islam,” said al-Bukhaiti in an article published in Aloula newspaper on December 15.

  Al-Saidi’s lawyer, Amin Hajar, issued a statement on December 27 in which he hoped the Yemeni judiciary would consider the accusations against the defendant as false, particularly that the defendant has never expressed retreating of Islam or Islamic rules.

 Therefore he said he hopes that court would consider the case as false and that the prosecution staff had made a mistake since the defendant had never denied he was a Muslim.     

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