Yemen

The 95-second video shows the two Dutch kidnap victims appealing to their country’s government. “These people are armed,” Judith Spiegel says in the clip. “If a solution is not found within 10 days, they are going to shoot us.”

Journalist Judith Spiegel and her husband, Boudewijn Berendsen, were mysteriously kidnapped from their house in the Haddah area of Yemen’s capital city Sana’a around the beginning of the second week of June by a group of gunmen.

Yemeni authorities used lethal force against an apparently peaceful demonstration in Sanaa on June 9, 2013, that caused at least nine deaths and several dozen injuries.

In two separate sessions on 6 June 2013, the Specialized Press and Publications Court found a Yemeni daily guilty of defamation charges in one case and innocent in another, according to news reports.

At least three journalists have been held hostage by armed tribesmen for a week in Yemen. Several reports named the tribal leader Yahia Saleh al-Masmi as responsible for the kidnapping.

The president of Yemen says journalist Abdul-Elah Haidar Shaye should be released from jail. Will Barack Obama stand between the reporter and freedom?

Yemeni journalists are facing continued physical and legal jeopardy, with one journalist receiving death threats and two others facing politicized defamation charges.

The latest in a wave of violence against the press in Yemen involved an attack on Al-Jazeera journalists and threats against a Sky News Arabia news crew by anti-government protesters in Aden.

Mansour Nour, a journalist for the September 26 newspaper, was shot at by gunmen in the city of Aden. He was hit three times in his right leg, which later had to be amputated.

As a global campaign to release journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye from prison picks up speed, other Yemeni journalists are finding it increasingly hard to do their jobs amid death threats and attempted attacks orchestrated at the hands of a variety of Yemeni factions with different agendas.

An explosive device weighing roughly 400 grams was found in the building where two media outlets were situated.

Yemeni news editor was sentenced to three months in jail for reporting on charges of insulting a public official.

On 22 February 2013, two men wearing military vests shot to death Wagdy al-Shabi, a 28-year-old Yemeni journalist, in his home in Aden, as well as a visitor, Wadoud Ali Saleh al-Somati.

Yemeni Central Security Forces opened fire on southern protesters on February 20 and 21 in Aden. In the process at least four protesters were shot and killed, and at least 15 others were wounded by gunfire.

The previous Yemeni government’s criminal investigation into the Friday of Dignity Massacre that took place on 18 March 2011 was fraught with political interference and ignored evidence implicating government officials.

Canadian Journalists for Freedom of Expression (CJFE) wrote a letter on Friday to Yemen President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi expressing its concern over news that journalist Khaled al-Hammadi had been admonished by the defense ministry over his piece in the London-based daily Al-Quds Alarabi observing the appointment of President Hadi’s family members to 180 military positions.