On Yemeni Press Day: Yemeni NGOs Call on the Warring Parties to Stop Targeting Journalists
Joint Statement
June 9th coincides with the Yemeni Press Day, while Yemeni journalists are facing systematic campaigns of suppression and intimidation, which affect their right to life, freedom of expression and opinion and aim to mute their voices and deny them access to information and reveal the truth.
Yemen suffers the worst humanitarian crisis in the bloody conflict and witnesses an unprecedented repression and violations to the rights and freedoms, by all parties to the conflict, albeit to varying degrees, in violation of the rules of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, including targeting journalists, as witnesses to the truth.
The undersigned human rights organizations express their solidarity with the Yemeni media and journalists in their ordeal, and recall on this occasion the tragedy of nine journalists;Abdulkhaliq Imran, Tawfiq Al-Mansoori, Akram Al-Walidi, Harith Hameed, Essam Belghith, Hisham Tarmoom, Hisham Al-Yousifi, Hassan Annab and Haitham Al-Shehab, who spend five years behind bars, for their role in exposing human rights violations, where they were abducted and imprisoned by the Houthis group.
The five journalists were abducted by the Houthis militia from a hotel in the capital, Sana'a, on June 9, 2015. On the other hand, many local and international human rights organizations, the International Federation of Journalists, the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate, have documented the brutal violations and torture these journalists have been subjected to in the prisons of Houthis group for the past five years.
On April 11th, a Houthis-controlled court passed a null death sentence against four journalists: Abdulhaliq Imran, Akram al-Walidi, Harith Hamid, and Tawfiq al-Mansoori, and ordered the release of other journalists, after time served in prison. The unjust rules were received with rejection and condemnation by press and human rights organizations and defenders.
On the 5thanniversary of the abduction of the journalists, we stand firmly with their families, and express our regret and sadness, for trauma, hardships, and psychological torture that children and relatives of journalists have been enduring for five years.Furthermore, we regret the indifference shown by all actors towards the humane calamity of the journalists, and in continuation of the humanitarian campaign that we launched to demand the rescue of prisoners from the threat of the Coronavirus, and following the outbreak of the pandemic in Yemen we reiterate our concerns and confirm the following:
Issued by the undersigned Yemeni human rights organizations:
