Akhbar Alyoum newspaper in Aden has been repeatedly attacked by gunmen belonging to the Southern Movement, a seperatist group in Yemen. Local authorities are being urged to provide protection for its employees and open an investigation into the incidents.
The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) blamed the Yemeni authorities for the targeting of journalists and media professionals stating that the constant harassment is a result of the authorities’ failure to provide the necessary protection for reporters and their failure to arrest the perpetrators of crimes against media personnel.
Akhbar Alyoum newspaper’s distributor in Aden, Tareq Mohamed Awad, along with another employee, were beaten by an armed group with the butts of their guns on 5 November 2013. They were threatened with death and the car in which they distributed copies of the newspaper was stolen. It was holding 600 issues of the paper and a large sum of money.
The two employees filed complaints with a police station and the Criminal Investigation Unit in Khormaksar city. The car was later found abandoned in alleyway.
“The attack on the newspaper’s distributors and the theft of their vehicle with its contents in place is yet another attack on the Akhbar Alyoum newspaper by gunmen near Aden,” said ANHRI. “On 5 October, gunmen belonging to the Southern Movement opened fire on another distribution vehicle belonging to the newspaper in the Cairo district in Aden, leaving one employee with injuries and abducting another.”
ANHRI calls on the Yemeni authorities to open an urgent investigation into the repeated attacks on the employees of Akhbar Alyoum newspaper. It also calls for the perpetrators to be arrested and taken to trial.
