Yemen

A video reporter for state-owned Yemen TV, Shaibani was killed while covering the fighting in Taiz along with other journalists.

Three Yemeni journalists, who are held captive by the Houthis since last June, are reported to have been tortured on 30 January, according to the Yemen Journalists’ Syndicate (YJS), an IFJ affiliate.

A second journalist has been killed in the space of a week as a result of the Saudi-led coalition’s air-strikes and an Al Jazeera reporter has been abducted together with his crew.

Yemeni freelance journalist Almigdad Mojalli was killed in an air strike by the Saudi-led coalition of Arab states in Jaref, a Houthi-controlled district in the southern outskirts of the capital, Sanaa.

“The Houthis’ closure of organizations comes in the midst of a campaign of arrests and enforced disappearances of activists, political opposition figures and journalists.”

Houthis barred Dr. Shafiqa al-Wahsh, director of the semi-governmental Women’s National Committee of Yemen, and her colleagues from traveling to preparatory peace talk meetings in the region.

Al Azal TV correspondent Amir Bou Owaydan, Yemen Al Yawm correspondent Mohamed Al Makri, and cameraman Akram al-Yamani were kidnapped on 12 October in Mukalla city, Hadramout region while covering a protest against the presence of al-Qaeda in the city.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) wrote to the leader of Ansar Allah Movement, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, warning him of his personal responsibility for the safety of Yemeni journalists, following a recent video message in which he described journalists as “traitors” and said that “something should be done to face them.”

Prominent opposition party member Muhammad Qahtan, 57, a leader of the Islah party, was arrested on 4 April 2015. His whereabouts have been unknown since.

Most of the journalists work for a news outlet that supports the rival Sunni party Al-Islah. It is not known where the 11 are being held or what has happened to them.

The crackdown on journalists comes at a time when belligerents are fighting not only over territory and power, but also for the control of information and how their fellow Yemenis understand the conflict.

The Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah, forcibly took him from his home in the city of Taizz on August 5, 2015, and have yet to respond to inquiries from his family about his whereabouts or why they are holding him.

IFEX members urge the UN Security Council to ensure the protection of journalists in Yemen in light of historic resolution.

Yemeni journalists Abdullah Kabil and Yousef Alaizry died in the southwestern province of Dhamar after being kidnapped by Houthis and held in a building which was bombed the following day by the Saudi-led coalition’s jet fighters.

Tensions in war-torn Yemen continue to simmer between Houthi militiamen, fighters for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the Saudi-led coalition, with media workers, human rights defenders and civilians increasingly caught in the crossfire.

Abdelkarim Nasser Ali Muthanna was killed on 22 April in Sirwah, in the eastern province of Marib, where Houthi rebels have been clashing with Sunni tribesmen for the past few weeks.