Chasing Yemen-Stories

Hello from Cairo!


As I mentioned in my commentary on the Listening Post show, if Yemen story used to be a complicated one, today, it’s absolutely way, way more complicated than ever before. No question that the aftermath of Saleh’s death has a lot to do with that complexity.





While living in Sweden over the past 6 years and a half, the dream of going back to Yemen never ceased to haunt me. I went to Sweden for a two-weeks-long study trip mid-2011, believing that I’d be back to Sana’a, my hometown right away. I didn’t even know where was Sweden located on the map. My only connection to Sweden when I was a kid in Yemen was when my mother used to say whenever she would find good woodish stuff and say, “this is great furniture, it must have come from Sweden.” Now, I know, she must have meant IKEA stuff.

Anyhow.

Sweden was a coincidence for me. During my first week in Stockholm in 2011, violence erupted in Sana’a. Airports were shut down. Already, I have been receiving death threats against me and my family for my anti-regime writings with the start of the Uprising. I wanted to go back but my family, out of love and protection, asked me to stop writing if I’d ever go back. And I thought; “to stop writing would be like to stop breathing.” Hence, Sweden was my shelter.


In the following four years, I’d live as a political refugee in Sweden. All this time I was only thinking of the day I’d have the Swedish passport and be able to go back to Yemen or at least visit. But as the country has been in an endless violent rollercoaster, I had to wait, wait and wait. Despite the distance, I managed to continue reporting with a gradually increasing focus on international actors’ role in political events in Yemen. Then, in March 2015, the Saudi-led airstrikes military operation began and I was about to have two major events in my personal life: I was writing my MA dissertation to graduate during summer and I was applying for the Swedish passport.


Seeing Yemen from afar being bombard was so painful that I was so slow in writing my dissertation and I only managed to graduate by August that year. Ironically, my application for the Swedish passport went very quickly. In June 2015, I became a Swedish citizen and I realized I could travel anywhere I want but not Yemen - because of the war and the fact that having a foreign passport will make it impossible to enter the country. I was extremely depressed for awhile.


As I started experiencing living in Sweden by a choice, I no longer saw Sweden from eyes tainted by displacemnt, trauma and pain. I was in the healing process. Nothing I regret living in Sweden - except the horrible dates I had with some Swedish guys and living my first one year without taking vitamine d. Overall, Sweden has been so good to me … but now it’s time to fly away - maybe - for awhile or for good.


When the Committee to Protect Journalists called me end of May this year, announcing that I was awarded the International Press Freedom Award, I made the decision to move from Sweden to somewhere in the Middle East. Why? CPJ has put me in a beautiful trouble. CPJ told me that this year of all the countries in the MENA region, they picked Yemen to bring more attention to it. And I take that so seriously. And I want to bring world’s attention on events in Yemen as much as I could.


Having said that:


I am today in Cairo for sometime, weeks, months, years - can’t confirm. It depends on many things which I’ll save explaining in other blog posts.


For now, I am in Cairo to be closer to Yemen and be part of the growing, forced-to-be-so, Yemeni diaspora community in Egypt - many of them are Yemeni activists, journalists and politicians. Despite the new political reality in Egypt, Cairo has been for many decades a crucial hub for events influencing Yemen.


My plan is to report from here as much as possible whether through Sana’a Review or/and the different media outlets I work with as a freelancer. My aim is to understand, analyze and write as Yemen’s new modern history is unfolding dramatically before our eyes.


As atrocities are committed across Yemen by all warring sides, instead of weeping, I will use my peaceful resistance tool and fight through writing.

The Battle For Sana'a

For about 5 months now, I have been documenting on Twitter what I called a crisis & a growing division between Saleh and Houthis. Last night, indeed, the crisis hit its peak as each side's forces clashed & a sort of guerrilla war on Sana'a streets began.

This is absolutely a defining moment not only on the course of Yemen war but also in post-Yemen's 2011 uprising period. What happens next? is it the end of the war? absolutely not. Here I comment on BBC World News on that:

Speculations loom around and nothing seems clear. But what we do know for sure is that the coalition between the Houthis and Saleh starting in mid-2014 has come to an end. Now, we are witnessing the emergence of a Saudi-Saleh coalition against Houthis. 

One thing Saleh has mastered over his almost 4 decades in politics is Survival Politics. He's been always ready to shift alliances & turn tables against whoever as long as it served his interests. What's notable this time is that he's shifting his alliance towards the Saudis because of his concerns with the tragic humanitarian situation in the country.

In this interview yesterday (above); Saleh was clear in demanding the Saudis and Emaraties to alleviate the humanitarian plight (to open airports, to allow humanitarian aid to enter Yemen and to rescue Yemenis from suffering). Saleh has been expressing his concerns over the suffering and bloodshed in the country over the past few months, as I document in my Twitter thread. What changes now is that the Saudis & Emarties seem to be leaning towards Saleh over Houthis, and they are responding positively as shown in yesterday statement from the Saudi-led coalition.

#BREAKING: #Arabcoalition calls ‘honest #Yemenis’ to unify efforts around their uprising. #Yemen #Sanaa #Houthis #Saleh pic.twitter.com/HrXoLlFZII

— Saudi Gazette (@Saudi_Gazette) December 2, 2017

The Saudis truly want an exit from Yemen war while not losing face. They are wasting billions of dollars in their arms deals to fight in an unwinnable war in Yemen. While Saudis' economy is crippling, they have begun looking for cheaper weapon markets; such as, in Greece. 

Saleh's will to negotiate allows Saudis to save face. But does that mean that Saleh is defeated? no. Saleh's political guarantee in sharing a place in the coming, in the making, Yemen's political roadmap, manifest itself in his nephew holding a vital military position. 

Right there, I think we are going to block zero. We are returning to post-Yemen's 2011 uprising's political reality. As if we never had a revolution. For Saleh and his circle are the problem of the beginning. All following events led us to this "lesser of two evils" situation; in which Yemenis are cornered to chose between "living in world's largest humanitarian crisis" or "Saleh" - "life under Houthis' rule" or "Saleh".

No matter what happens, for the battle for Sana'a will be bloody, I pray for protection and safety for my mother, cousins, family and friends in Sana'a living life under Houthis' barbaric bloodcraze and Saudi-led coalition's airstrikes. 

U.S. Travel Ban Could Deny Me Attend My International Free Press Award Ceremony

When the Committee to Protect Journalists announced two months ago that I was one of the awardees of this year's International Free Press Award (IFPA), I knew I was about to undertake a bittersweet step in my almost decade-long journalism career.

The CPJ explained that, from the Arab region, they had chosen Yemen this year, in order to shine a light on the conditions in which Yemeni journalists work, and also to celebrate my reporting on Yemen, despite all the obstacles.

But in the age of US President Donald Trump's travel ban - which includes Yemeni nationals - I became increasingly concerned about travelling to the US to receive the award.

In addition to an invitation to the awards ceremony in New York, the CPJ have also organised for me to meet with State Department officials in DC, and university staff to raise awareness about violations against Yemeni journalists and the humanitarian crisis in my war-torn homeland.

While there are good reasons why I should travel to the US and join the CPJ, my two US visa applications to date have been rejected by the American embassy in Stockholm, Sweden. I am currently applying for the third time, and I am not optimistic.

Sweden became my second home after I arrived here in May 2011 from Yemen, after being invited to participate in a youth leadership training course. I left with just two weeks of luggage, thinking I'd soon be back home.

Not wanting to wake my mother before my late-night flight, I left without much of a goodbye. But as the violence escalated in my hometown, Sanaa, and I was at risk following the death threats I was receiving for my anti-regime writings during the beginning of Yemen's 2011 uprising, Sweden became the place where I had to seek political asylum.

As the conflict in Yemen continued, I remained in Sweden and continued freelance reporting on Yemen for various media outlets. In a bid to stay in contact with my family and friends in Yemen, and the diaspora abroad, I've used every channel of communication I can.

For the past six years in Sweden, I have been on constant alert, hunting my next Yemen story. While I could have put Yemen to the back of my mind, and settled down in Sweden, continuing to write felt like the most meaningful thing I could do.

Determined to expose the under-reported war in Yemen, I found that reporting from exile resembled being in a long-distant relationship, with all the love and longing that comes with geographical separation.

A year and a half year ago, I became a Swedish citizen. I could travel freely and was also enjoying living by choice in Sweden. Today, I am both Swedish and Yemeni citizen, though my Yemeni passport expired a while ago.

This makes me a privileged Yemeni in comparison to my fellow countrymen, and especially my journalist colleagues who are all trapped in war.

My Swedish passport enabled me to travel around for work until Trump's travel ban came into the picture. The proposed travel ban has gone through various iterations, but what I know for sure is that my visa applications to the US embassy in Stockholm were rejected because of it.

The first time, applying as a Swedish citizen, "you are not authorized to enter the US" was the response that came. My second application was made as a Yemeni citizen. After I made it to the interview with the embassy officer, she told me that I had failed to show my ties to Sweden and that there was no guarantee that I would return to the "foreign country" - that is Sweden - after my visit to the US.


In both applications, I was asked if I had been in Yemen anytime from March 2011 (that's when the executive order comes into effect). Of course, I had been. The application asked me to justify my visit to Yemen and I told the truth: I had a life in Yemen - family, friends and work.

I will find out by Monday if my third application has been successful. In the meantime, I want my story to help raise the profile of other Yemeni journalists, working hard to make the world understand the brutal suffering of a nation.

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*My latest column published on The New Arab today.