(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has called on Judge Mohammad Ismail Adbel Kader, of the Sanaa Court, to drop charges against journalist Said Thabet Said, who is accused of “spreading false news damaging to public interest and security”. Thabet Said is due to make a second court appearance on 10 March 2004. He risks a sentence of […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has called on Judge Mohammad Ismail Adbel Kader, of the Sanaa Court, to drop charges against journalist Said Thabet Said, who is accused of “spreading false news damaging to public interest and security”.
Thabet Said is due to make a second court appearance on 10 March 2004. He risks a sentence of up to one year in prison and a fine equivalent to approximately US$100.
Police arrested Thabet Said in Sanaa on 5 March. The security services accuse him of reporting that President Ali Abdallah Saleh’s son, who heads the Republican Guard and Special Forces, was the target of an assassination attempt. The report was immediately denied by the authorities and dismissed as “a false allegation circulated to harm Yemen”.
Thabet Said is a correspondent for the London-based Al-Qods Press news agency and an elected member of the Yemeni Journalists’ Union. He was held for close to 72 hours, until 8 March, when he was taken before a judge who ordered his release on bail. The journalist’s trial is scheduled to resume on 10 March.
“The arrest of a journalist and his detention for 72 hours, as if he were a criminal, are serious and unacceptable press freedom violations,” said RSF. “Now is the time to correct these mistakes, drop all charges against the journalist and offer assurances to other media professionals, who will have been intimidated by the use of such methods. The press law should also be amended, in consultation with journalists’ professional organisations, to abolish prison terms for press offences,” the organisation added.
RSF pointed out that this was the second arrest of a journalist in Yemen in less than one month. On 24 February, the Aden Political Security Services, in southern Yemen, questioned Najeeb Yabli, of the daily “Al-Ayyam”, for about 12 hours. Yabli was detained after he wrote that the Yemeni president’s policies and those of the United States were “two sides of the same coin.”
