Feb 28 2011 |
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Government bans media coverage of anti-regime protests
By Ali Saeed and Sadeq Al-Wesabi SANA'A -- For the fifth time, Al-Masdar online, an independent local news website, was blocked by the government last Saturday night, according to Yaser Al-Arami, editor-in-chief of Al-Masdar online.Al-Arami told the Yemen Times that the website was blocked because of its news about recent developments in Aden, Sana'a and other governorates. He indicated that the website has become suscessful by reporting breaking news and using multimedia to accompany such reports.
"The success of our website has annoyed the government," he said.
He said that there were many attempts to hack the websites but all of these attempts have failed because of the websites highly capable technical staff.
Al-Arami revealed that the National Security Bureau has a department specifically tasked with monitoring Yemeni news websites.
"I am not ruling out the possibly that the National Security Bureau has blocked the website," he said.
"When the regime resorts to censorship it indicated that the government fears the media. Freedom of expression annoys the regime," he said.
"We hold the government responsible for blocking our website. This also negatively affects our relations with advertisers and has a terrible affect on our reputation with business partners," he said.
Al-Masdar online website ranked first in Yemen Last year, according to an evaluation carried out by Yemeni websites, prominent journalists and readers.
Similarly, Al-Jazeera Arabic TV channel reported on Saturday evening that the Yemeni government requested that two correspondents of the channel to Yemen, Abdulhaq Sadah and Ahmed Zaidan, to leave the country immediately.
The channel explained that, "Yemen's Deputy Minister of Information told the director of the channel office in Sana'a, Saeed Thabet, to ban the two journalists from reporting on the current protests in Yemen. He also asked them to leave the country entirely."
Al-Jazeera added that this is the second time that the Yemeni Government has attempted to ban these two journalists from covering anti-government protests that are taking place in several Yemeni cities.
Jamal An'am, chairman of the freedoms' committee at the Yemeni Journalists' Syndicate told the Yemen Times that the, "Syndicate issued a statement condemning this action by the Yemeni regime against the freedom of press."
"It has shown that the regime has no patience for good journalism."
He explained that "this step comes within a policy by the regime to keep the media distant from the protests."
He added that, "Since the anti-government protests broke out in the country, the Yemeni government launched a war against journalists in an attempt to falsify information and distory the reality of what is going on."
An'am said that several journalists have been threatened recently in Yemen. They have also been physically assaulted while covering anti-government protests.
"We are worried that the regime is preparing to oppress both protesters and journalists," he said.
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