politburo diktat 2.0

an article by Rahma Hugira, female Yemeni journalist
Sana’a -Yemen

Recently, 23 prisoners of alQaeda most dangerous members in Yemen broke away from their prison after a very long process of planning, while Yemeni security were too busy chasing and snooping on opponent journalists .The fugitives were said to dig a more than 400 meters underground tunnel to the most secured prison in Yemen, the Political Security. Some of them were even luckier and had opportunities to running away for three a number of times.
Fortunately, for more than month Alqaeda members were digging the tunnel to smuggle their leaders, for the third attempt! Whereas the local security were keen on spreading a recorded private telephone conversation between Aljazera correspondent in Yemen ,Ahmed Alshalfi and his wife, as scandal to punish him for interviewing the kidnappers of tourist Italians last month!!.
Regardless of what was reported in Yemeni newspapers and speculations about whether the breakaway was a means to blackmail the US administration or a deal between Alqaeda and some powerful figures in Saleh’s regime, there is the other side of this story: the tragedy of unlucky civil society activists that has to be mentioned.
This week perhaps, the fugitives are planning to go through their agenda, whereas three editors of Yemeni newspapers were shown standing with criminals in blue convicts clothes in a cage. There are Mohammed Alasadi, the editor-in-chief of Yemen Observer and Akram Sabra, Managing Editor of al-Huraea and Kamal Alulofi, editor-in-chief of Alray Ala’am, who still wanted by the police. The three face gross accusations for republishing the Danish satirical cartoons, in spite of the fact that they had published the caricatures as away to denounce them, the authorities found it as a golden chance to and use it against them and thus further undermine the freedom of press.
Besides the three detained journalists, there are more than 13 ‘unruly’ journalists, who have been threatened to be charged with the same accusations because of their straightforward articles criticizing the corruption of Yemeni rulers. Furthermore, three newspapers including, Yemen Observer, one of only two papers that are published in English in Yemen have had their licenses canceled.

Despite the inhuman conditions the detainee journalists are living in, and the others whose reputation has been defamed, these journalists are afraid that they would be targeted by extreme anger and assaults from the angry and misled public, whose illiteracy and extremism was exploited by the regime to attack its enemies and blackmail its friends.

These contradictory attitudes of Saleh’s mismanagement are complicated equations for anyone who doesn’t follow Yemeni issues, but for Yemenis, they are perfectly understood and it is known to all here that the real enemies of Saleh’s are those who oppose him by means of civil methods, not by breaking laws or threatening the world security and peace.
Therefore, Saleh has spent more time and effort to fight his critics inside Yemen or outside than he has done about international wanted persons or corrupt figures. For this, he employed military operations or Yemeni people’s attitude to influence public opinion in Yemen. The media, mosques and army camps are the most popular platforms that are used to incite people with misleading ideas and views to serve the ruling regimes in the Muslim world.
If we could count how many times president Saleh roused these platforms against terror and against his opponents, especially journalists, we will see that the subject is there in 90% of his speeches. Furthermore, the media and mosques still incite uneducated Yemeni people against the West and against America.
Then it is typical that the regime would ask for security and financial cooperation to use for the purpose of blackmailing donors further, and terrorizing journalists .That is what Yemen’s friends found it out lately about Yemeni-American cooperation to fight terrorism. Now they that they can’t achieve any victories against terror with corrupted and cheating partner like the Yemeni regime. It is beyond the ability of Saleh to fight terror, which has created by bigotry and illiteracy because it has been used by him to maintain his rule period for more than 28 years.
It is clearly that the big challenge in fighting terror in Yemen, Bin Laden’s homeland, for the USA and the international society is how to manage to avoid supporting the double terror in; Aalqaeda terror and terror against journalists .

Chairman of the Yemeni Women Media Forum