The NewsYemen website was attacked on the day of Eid, November 28th, and as a result, all of the data on the website was lost.
According to NewsYemen's publisher, Nabil al-Sofi, the attack came from a virus that was sent by the Internet Administration at the Ministry of Telecommunication. Al-Sofi directly accused the government of damaging the website.
“The Internet Administration and the ministry itself are the only government authorities that have to explain what happened. We have received information from the host company of our website that indicated that the virus was sent from the Internet Administration at the Ministry of Telecommunication,” said al-Sofi.
The Yemen Observer attempted to contact the people in charge at the Internet Administration, but no one responded. Al-Sofi said that the ministry still doesn't realize the key role that websites play in today's world and that it is impossible to control the news published on the internet. He described the government's efforts to block certain websites, with the assistance of some Chinese experts, as irrational behavior.
“We received some warnings from different people in the government, but we expressed our willingness to abide by any list they sent us of what not to write about. Nevertheless, we never heard a response, and instead, now we have lost five years of our work,” al-Sofi added.
A number of Yemeni news websites warned against the seriousness of the government's attack on NewsYemen's website, which was hacked and had its database destroyed. The attack is considered by many as a serious incident, which damages the reputation of Yemen and endangers the future of the press, particularly the press that uses electronic media. Many of the news websites noted that internet use in Yemen is unsafe.
A conglomerate of Yemeni websites issued a statement in which they said that they observed the incident with serious concern, calling it a crime of piracy and robbery in light of the years of effort from the NewsYemen staff that was lost.
The statement expressed their condemnation of the act. It also expressed their full solidarity with the management and editorial staff of NewsYemen, and demanded that the relevant authorities hold accountable those involved in the internet attack.
In addition, the conglomerate's statement said, “We hold the perpetrators fully responsible for compensating NewsYemen for its material and moral losses, and we hold them responsible for any collateral damage that might affect other news websites in the country. We insist that they be brought to justice immediately and we call on the Press Syndicate to support its colleagues at NewsYemen with all its legal resources.”
The statement went on to say that the calamity that NewsYemen has experienced clearly reveals the risks that the press and the electronic media in Yemen continually face. It also reveals the evils of the official monopoly of internet service, and its inability to provide secure internet for the public.
Finally, the statement stressed the reality of the unsafe working atmosphere for the press in Yemen in general, and news websites in particular. The statement expressed that it is not possible to separate the NewsYemen incident with the ongoing campaign targeted against newspapers and journalists in Yemen. The statement concluded with the representatives from the websites urging the Yemeni journalists Syndicate to stand firm against this campaign and any escalated persecution so that the country can achieve the reality of free and secure press.