Words with High Price

UPDATE May 27, 2017:

"Today I spoke like 30 good min with هاني الجنيد Hani Aljunid {check post below} on the phone. I would have liked to publish a long piece on his talk to me about who arrested/released him, how he was tortured & where is he hiding now but it will all risk his life.

All we can say now is that the danger is still on, but Hani appreciates all the solidarity he got. The noise you guys make, truly, makes a big difference. At least in Hani's case. Very unfortunately, today 3 Yemeni journalists were killed in Taiz by Houthis' bullets & no noise could save their lives. Nor these journalists' names will get the headlines, no hashtags for their names will trend worldwide. No nothing for Taiz or Yemeni journalists at the battlefield covering atrocities. Nothing. Just like that, another death in Yemen & another loss for local Yemeni voices speaking up for the butchered ones. And We can't afford to lose Hani. Hani still needs your solidarity like Yemen does. For the truth & humanity. For the love of love."
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His name is Hani Aljunid. He’s for many one of Yemen’s best journalists, who has so much integrity. But for me, he’s the second most important person I have in Yemen after my family. I call him, comrade and he does so too. Did I mention that he’s also an active member at the socialist political party in Yemen? Well, he is, and still many don’t find any problem with his journalism and his political affiliation, except powerful corrupt politicians, corrupt businessmen, Al Qaeda and ISIS members.

Hani has only his words against all this evil. And that evil, embodied by some extremists arrested Hani along two other journalists, Majed al-Shoa’aibi and Hossam Radman on Tuesday, 16 May. The arrest was at the funeral of Amjed Mohammed, a social activist who was gunned down at an internet cafe in Aden, 2 days before Hani’s arrest. Basically, Amjed was a victim of unlawful killing, which seems to be the new norm in Aden under Saudi Arabia’s president Hadi rule. Hani and the other two journalists went to the funeral and were arrested, tortured and released. It’s still not clear who’s behind the arrest but several FB posts by siblings of Hani, Majed and Hossam say that they all were arrested on blasphemy charges.

Hani, known to be super active in posting on FB, he has not written a word yet. His brother wrote that Hani refuses to say anything for now and he was transferred to the hands of the Saudi-led coalition's forces. No updates so far on Hani’s situation.

It makes me sick thinking what could be happening to Hani now. My comrade. I know Hani since Yemen’s 2011 uprising. Hani has always written & advocated for social justice, equal citizenship for all, anti-militarism and he was a great believer in Yemen’s 2011 uprising. In 2012, Hani was deliberately targeted and physically assaulted during Gen. Ali Muhsen’s rule of Sana’a University. When the Houthis stormed into Sana’a on September 2014, Hani was one of the main dissident voices against Houthis’ atrocities. He has received numberless death threats from pro-Houthi groups. Along the beginning of the Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen, he had to flee to Taiz. Then, some armed groups in Taiz targeted him as he was also critical in his writings to these groups’ behaviour in the city. Again, following several death threats, Hani had to flee to Aden.

In 2012, Hani was deliberately 

targeted and physically assaulted

during Gen. Ali Muhsen’s rule of 

Sana’a University. 

Throughout all these events, I kept a very close touch with Hani. I used to tell him, ‘don’t get killed, comrade!’ ‘I won’t let them kill me. I need to see you first, comrade!” Hani’s answer. The harshest calls were when I used to call Hani and he would tell me how he was surviving his day by having only one meal. Hani was financially struggling, like everything in the country. Though Hani had to pay a huge price for his writings but he thinks it’s nothing comparing to what his comrades had to sacrifice with. Several of his friends were killed in protests or/and deliberately targeted.


I can’t pretend to be strong at this moment. I can only pray for Hani and Yemen.

The Yemen War, Media, and Propaganda

#SaveYemeniJournalistss

*Yemeni media is one of the most affected aspects in the raging war in Yemen. In an unprecedented case, a Houthi-controlled court issued a death sentence earlier in April, against journalist Yahya al-Joubayhy, for being a “Saudi spy,” reflecting a glimpse of the risks Yemeni media workers endure.


The war in Yemen has negatively impacted media in multiple-levels. In 2016, in a televised speech, the leader of Houthi rebels, Abdelmalek al-Houthi, warned “The media workers are more dangerous to our country than the nationalist and warring mercenaries,” shows the hostility of militant groups toward the media. This hostility hinders the media’s ability to deliver news and stories about Yemen’s war, leaving Yemeni news audiences ignorant, dependent on military groups’ own media, and easy prey to war propaganda.

War on the Media

Yemen’s media has suffered a decline and retreated as it comes under increased pressure during the ongoing conflict. According to Yemen’s National Information Center, before the Houthis’ takeover of Yemen’s capital city Sanaa in September 2014, Yemen used to enjoy about 295 publications, four official state-owned TV channels, and fourteen privately-owned TV channels. Despite this media landscape, Freedom House ranked Yemen’s freedom of the press status amongst the worst in the world, and it has since declined.

Controlling the local and international narrative is crucial for the Houthis. When Houthi forces took over Sanaa in 2014, they shelled the Yemen state TV station, and soon after they replaced media professionals with Houthi-affiliated media groups. While this was happening in Houthi-controlled areas, newspapers and broadcasts in the north and south were suspended, such as the formerly state-owned Althawra and 14October newspapers. Instead, the Houthi's captured Althawra and turned it into a pro-Houthi outlet circulated only in the north, and 14October had a similar experience under the southern coalition. In Houthi-controlled areas, there has been a crackdown on media groups, the Yemeni internet service provider, Yemennet, which has blocked certain anti-Houthi websites, and the Houthi-controlled Ministry of Information accused media outlets of “inciting treason.” Controlling the media became even more prevalent in 2015 after the Saudis started their air campaign.

Today, in Houthi-controlled areas, there are ten Houthi-owned print publications, two Houthi-owned TV channels and one TV channel owned by former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. In the south, a handful of TV channels and newspapers are currently working, the most notable are owned separately by Yemeni President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi and General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar. There are also three independent media groups.

The deadliest violation against press in Yemen was the death of two Yemeni journalists who reportedly were used as human shields by Houthi forces to protect a military installation. In another instance, blogger and investigative journalist Mohammed al-Absi, known for reporting on a number of Houthi-related-corruption stories, was poisoned. While many believe Houthis are responsible, the investigation is still undergoing. The large-scale abuses against press in Yemen has not only made Yemen one of the most dangerous places to work as a journalist, but also has ranked the Houthis as the second worst abuser of press freedom in the world—only the Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) surpasses them.

Meanwhile, Hadi and his government have begun focusing on using social media as the sole tool for dissemination of information starting from the day he escaped Sanaa to Aden in February 2015. Hadi was able to escape with the help of former Information Minister Nadia al-Saqqaf, who was tweeting about his alleged ‘critical health’ under Houthi imposed siege. Other Yemeni officials are also ordered to join and be active on Twitter, according to a Yemeni official who prefers to remain anonymous for security reasons. Hadi’s leadership has given more focus on using the internet as means to disseminate information in a country where only a quarter of its population has access to the internet, which is mainly the elite. The exiled government seems more concerned about addressing the international community than Yemenis.

Flawed Media Representation

As a result of the hindered and biased media landscape, both the international community and more particularly the Yemeni public receive a distorted picture of the Yemen war. This turmoil in the media landscape has undermined any relatively comprehensive media representation of the Yemen war. Each side of the media coverage focuses on its opponent’s atrocities, deliberately overlooking its own wrongdoings, to cast the other as the only perpetrator. More importantly, each side of the media may not necessarily instigate sectarianism, but it does instigate regionalism, antagonism, and violence by humanising one side and dehumanising the other. For instance, each side depicts the other as mercenaries for the Saudis or the Iranians, respectively, and depicts their dead as the only ones worthy of being called victims.

The polarized media outlets also characterize the beginning of the war differently. For pro-Houthi and Saleh media, it began when the Saudi-led coalition began its campaign, while for pro-exiled government media outlets, there is an emphasis on the Houthis’ coup d’etat. For Yemenis, it is impossible to get a full picture of the conflict. In the north, people not politically affiliated tend to gradually become Houthi supporters as most media outlets are affiliated with the Houthis, and vice versa in the south. As each understanding of the conflict becomes more biased, it becomes harder to reach national and local level reconciliation deals.

The international media, and specifically Arab media, coverage suffers from a different set of problems. A quick look at major news organizations shows a lack of coverage of Yemen in comparison to other global events, and rarely features Yemen articles in the headlines. There are three main reasons for this: first, Houthi forces either forcibly disappear or put behind bars non-propagandist Yemeni journalists; second, Saudi Arabia is buying media silence along with hiring PR companies to polish its image in media; and lastly, independent foreign journalists do not have access to the country.

Yemenis who are critical of both local coverage and international media find themselves disappointed and frustrated. Incomplete information coupled with frustration is something that armed groups, including the belligerent parties and extremist groups such as ISIS, prey on to attract recruits.

Most Yemeni journalists interviewed for this article expressed that they had no work because they had been forced to move back to their villages to escape the Houthi crackdown. One journalist pointed out that, “polarization in Yemeni media has never been this high. The problem is that there is no room for a middle ground. On one hand, Houthis allow press only if it is biased in favor of them, as does the Yemeni exiled-government. All that you have in Yemen now is propaganda and each side can support you, only if you abide by their propaganda.”

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*This article was originally written for and published at The Atlantic Council organization on the 3rd of May 2017. 

Yemeni Journalist Sentenced to Death for Being a "Saudi Spy"

A Houthi-affiliated Yemeni court in Sana'a, Yemen sentenced today Yemeni journalist and academic, Yahya al-Joubaihy to death for treason, Houthi-owned news agency Saba'a News Agency reported. "The criminal court issued a death sentence against Yahya al-Joubaihy, 61, for treason and spying with the enemy state {Saudi Arabia}, as correspondence documents between him and the enemy proved his treason," Saba'a News Agency claimed, "Yahya contacted Saudia Arabia illegally, communicated with its ambassador and secretary and delivered reports that harm the republic of Yemen. Yahya also received 4500 Saudi riyals monthly starting from 2010."

Yahya's house was stormed by Houthi forces on the 6th of September in 2016 and he was detained along confiscating his personal belongings, mobile, computer and documents, according to a statement of condemning issued by Yemeni Journalists' Syndicate today. Just before Yahya's arrest, his son was also arrested by Houthi forces, until today.

source: Yahya's daughter on facebook. 

Journalists and writers have always been subjected to a great risk in Yemen along Saleh's rule, but the deteriorating condition for journalists under Houthis' rule is unprecedented. This is probably the very first time a journalist is sentenced to death. Yahya is one face of many journalists and young men abducted and forcibly detained by the Houthis since they overtook Sana'a city in Septemeber 2014. Reporters without borders have ranked the Houthis for two years in a row as the second top abuser of press freedom in the world after the Islamic State.

"Statistics show until the end of 2016 that more than 3,000 men have been abducted by the Houthis", on a phone call a spokesperson of "Mothers of the Abductees," told me. The coalition is compromised of mothers, daughters and sisters and female relatives of abducted and forcibly disappeared men in Houthis' prisons in Sana'a and few other Yemeni cities. The spokesperson who asked to hide its name for security reasons also added, "a great deal of the abducted group has been hidden for two years now without granting them any contact with their families. Let alone that they have been in jail with no trial, whatsoever."

A couple days ago, Islahi-owned TV channel, al-Suhail aired a video report of the Houthi-affiliated court's trail of 36 people in accusation of supporting Saudi Arabia. One of the jailed men pleaded loudly that this is the first time he and the imprisoned people see light and that he has been tortured and he demanded to have a fair trail.




Yemen's president, Hadi and six other top officials in his government were sentenced to death for "high treason", last month. No comment of any of these death sentences has been made by Hadi's office. Meanwhile, social media pages in Yemen have been flooded with words of solidarity with Yahya, petitions and numberless calls for his release, asserting that Yahya is absolutely innocent.

Yahya wrote regular columns in Saudi dailies Okaz and Al-Madina, as well as in Yemeni newspapers. He served at the government's press department in the 1990s and 2000s when Saleh was president and Hadi was his deputy.

In solidarity with Yahya and all our victim brothers of injustice sitting behind Houthis' jail! 

Frequently Asked Questions about Yemen War

A graffiti work by Yemeni artists, Murad Subay, commemorating 15 children killed in 

Bani Hawwat area, in Sana’a, by an airstrike. May 18, 2015.

"Time to go back to blogging"

A dear friend and blogger from Syria, Razan Ghazzawi wrote a few days ago on her FB wall. Despite that the heartbreaking brutal war in Syria is on the news all the time, she's noticing that people know little about the situation in Syria. When I read her FB post, I thought: been there, done that. In international conferences I give talks about Yemen, I also often meet an audience who doesn't know much about the situation in Yemen, and doesn't know who to follow or read on Yemen. 

Murad's work was one of the topics I discussed at the "Arab Spring Generation" talk run by
Amnesty at Gothenburg's book fair, yesterday.

Inspired by Ghazzawi's call and by my participation in Gothenburg's Book Fair yesterday, where I took part in three talks about women's rights in patriarchal societies, journalism from exile, and Arab Spring generation, inspired by all that, I list below some of the most frequently asked questions about Yemen and the ongoing war, and my answer to them. 

* * * * * * 

Q1. Why don't we hear much about the war in Yemen in the media? is it because Yemen war is overshadowed by Syria war? 

From your question, I understand that you at least know more about the war in Syria but not in Yemen. Which is good. Better than not knowing about the two wars at all. From your question, I understand as well that you care about Syria and want to care as well about Yemen. Which is awesome. At this point, I appreciate your desire in trying to know about Yemen war. 

Now, answering your question, I think you don't hear much about the war in Yemen for three main reasons among many other: 

A. Yemenis are stranded and can't escape the war to Europe. Embassies in Yemen have shut down a long time ago. People can only apply for a visa to travel abroad from Jordan, Egypt or Ethiopia. To get to these countries by itself can be impossible with their extremely arbitrary and constantly changing rules. Even for those who have the patience in following the rules, they might run out of money in the course of traveling to Jordan, then coming back to Yemen and then traveling again to take the passport. And when you could afford the agony of traveling, there is a 99% chance that your visa application is rejected. Mind you that Yemen's main airport in Sana'a has been bombed several times by the Saudi-led coalition and only hidden diligent airport workers work in repairing what's repairable. Only one single airline can operate in Yemen and that is Yemenia, Yemen's airlines. 

Moreover, Yemen's geographical location makes it much harder for people to flee. Most of Yemen's neighbouring countries are taking part in the Saudi-led coalition bombing Yemen. When Yemenis are desperate enough to take the boats to neighbouring countries, the destination is typically towards Somalia and Djibouti. Despite that these countries are one of the world's poorest countries, they represent Yemenis' tiny window to escape. Once they arrive in Somalia & Djibouti, they have uncertain future. Having said that, you may measure the implications. You won't see Yemenis speaking in international conferences. And you were only able to see and talk to me because I live in Europe. 

B. Unlike the war in Syria, the Saudis are a direct actor in Yemen war and this tremendously impacts the lack of reporting or the non-reporting about Yemen war. Last year, Wikileaks released thousands of diplomatic cables from Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minstry, which includes documents showing how Saudi Arabia is buying media silence. Understandably, the oil-rich country, one of the world's top economic powers, Saudi Arabia has cash that can buy anything and anyone. The problem is, Saudi is at war with not any country but the POOREST Arab country, Yemen - which gives you an idea about the inequality in power in this war. 

C. The misconception that the war in Yemen is based on sectarian lines, as some reporters speak of Iran's role in Yemen war and how the war in Yemen is a proxy war and all that.. then, one reduces the bloodshed in Yemen to a mere Sunnis killing Shi'ites rhetorics. Whoever made you believe that is only doing a lazy journalism. Sectarianism is not the key driver of Yemen war, a super complicated political and economic power struggle is what drove this war to break out from the very beginning. There are many different internal and external actors in Yemen war with many different political agendas - some actors can find a cross-match point where secterian and politica motives meet. 

Q2. How is the press freedom in Yemen today? 

The press in Yemen is in crisis, as everything else is in crisis in the country. The humanitarian crisis could be the worst humanitarian tragedy in the world today, even beyond Syria. Nearly half of Yemen's population, over 14 MILLION people inside Yemen lack food, water, medicine and other basic human needs. No doubt among these millions of people are journalists and writers who are struggling to stay alive. Then, you have that the Houthis have forcibly disappeared and detained many local journalists who tried to expose Houthis-made human rights violations or even simply who want to report about what’s on the ground. Only those journalists who are, or sound like, pro-Houthis and abide by Houthis’ narrative can practice their work safely. It’s important to note that many journalists or commentators try to sound like a pro-Houthis, while not identifying oneself as a pro-Houthis. That’s done because they are scared of Houthis’ oppressive and barbaric rule. So, there is much self-censorship. 

Plus, as the war prolongs, journalists are discarding journalism and turning into armed fighters at frontlines, each motivated by his political affiliation to this or that armed group. 

For international journalists, it's almost impossible to get in Yemen. For more details into this, please check the following tweets: 

Why is Yemen too dangerous to report on? @Nawalf answers  📻  https://t.co/qsa18cjQSf

— Afrah Nasser (@Afrahnasser) September 13, 2016

"A jurno must apply 4 a flight ticket 2 Yemen, then, get permission frm Saudis & Houthis. A fight that often takes 7 hrs now takes +24 hrs"

— Afrah Nasser (@Afrahnasser) September 13, 2016

And I also co-spoke yesterday at the Book Fair about several aspects of media and Yemen war:

Q3. How is the situation for women's rights in Yemen today? 

Horrible. So far 10 thousand people have been killed in Yemen war, which includes women and children as they are the most vulnerable victims in this war. In light of the horrific humanitarian situation, million of mothers are suffering from malnutrition and therefore can't breastfeed their little babies and therefore both million of mothers and babies are suffering from hunger, which has extremely damaging consequences to their health. Despite that women are directly affected by the war, peace advocate Yemeni women had little, if nothing at all, say in Yemen's previous peace talks. 

Nonetheless, Yemeni women activists are still doing what they can do to end the war. To be a women rights advocate in Yemen today means you are an anti-war activist, an anti-arm-sales activist, among many other forms of activism.

Q4. Has the Arab Spring achieved anything for Yemen?

Both yes and no. As the war rages on in Yemen, it seems foolish to say that Yemen harvested any merits from Yemen's 2011 uprising. It actually did. It started a movement, a process, which calls for civil rights for all Yemenis. This can't be finalized in 2 or 5 years. This will take generations. But on the other hand, Yemenis need the world's solidarity. Yemen can't get back on its feet again, while governments in London and Washington DC are an ally to unjust and oppressive regimes which shape Yemen's politics, and here I can name Saudi Arabia. For a more current example, UK was accused of blocking UN inquiry into claim of war crimes in Yemen. However, there are still ongoing efforts by the Netherlands pushing a UN draft resolution in establishing that independent international committee. 

Pro-Houthi Rebels Detain Prominent Writer, Al-Madhaji & Other Dissidents

Before holding the executive directory of the
newly-founded, SCSS, Al-Madhaji has
been a prolific writer on democracy, politics
 and human rights issues in Yemen.  

 "The Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies (SCSS) strongly condemns the detention of its Executive Director, Maged Al-Madhaji, by armed forces loyal to the Houthi rebel movement. On Saturday morning, September 19th, Madhaji was arrested at a protest demanding freedom for Yemenis held extrajudicially by the Houthis and their allies, along with journalist Mahmoud Yassin , Bassim Al-Warafi and the founders of Mwatana Organization for Human Rights, Radhya Al-Mutawakel and Abdulrasheed Al-Faqih. Mutawakel has been released. Regretfully, the rest remain in detention.

Today's arrests of civil society activists constitute the latest in a series of blatant civil liberty violations that have seen armed groups in Yemen attempt to silence dissident voices in the country." –SCSS 

Dozens of journalists and anti-Houthi activists have been abducted and detained by pro-Houthi rebels for over the past year. 

World Press Freedom Day: Yemenis’ Words & Lives Under Fire

Picture by Malin Crona

Reporters without boarders' office in Sweden has awarded the imprisoned Saudi blogger, Raif Badawi the World Press Freedom award yesterday in Stockholm. I took part in a panel discussion part of the award ceremony along with a number of Swedish journalists. I'm posting here a text I prepared for the session that could shed light on parts of the press freedom condition in Yemen that's affected by the war's cruelty. 

World Press Freedom Day: Yemenis’ Words & Lives Under Fire

May 3, 2015 – There is so much going on in Yemen as I speak, and talking about the right to free press might be considered totally irrelevant. Yemen is at war and Yemenis are struggling to have the right to peace and life. The war has been waged almost six weeks ago after a coalition of 10 Arab countries headed by Saudi Arabia started operating a campaign of airstrikes against military targets in Yemen and simultaneously there is a fierce internal armed fights between several domestic factions. As the war is taking place, a great deal of citizens’ rights are violated and no doubt the right to free information and freedom of expression are violated as well. Actually, it’s hard to know where to start in analyzing the current condition of press freedom in the country in the light of the ongoing war. Nonetheless, here is my attempt.



2014, in particular has been a chaotic and harsh year for free press in Yemen and it continues to be so as the ongoing multi-facets conflicts are taking place in the country. Yemeni journalists are facing mounting dangers in practicing their job and facing grave threats to their own lives in the light of the ongoing violence and the authoritarian style of leadership shown by the new ruling power now at the hands of the Houthi’ militia group, who came to power, or still fighting to have full power, since their coup against president Hadi and his government carried in september last year. Generally speaking, before the coup, press in Yemen could be described as partisan press: journalism outlets usually worked along with political party lines. Today, the press is heavily used as a tool for propaganda and instigation of animosity and hatred). Having said that, Clearly, the war’s implications would also have a grave impact on how the press’ future would look like.


In the wider view over the current condition for media in Yemen: it is important to note that Following Yemen’s Uprising in 2011, there was a relatively boom in the field of media in the country: Despite widespread illiteracy, by last year, Yemen had around 90 newspapers published weekly or more often and the state's monopoly on broadcasting had been broken; there were several privately-owned Yemeni TV channels (some of them based outside the country) plus a number of radio stations. As elsewhere, there had also been a rapid increase in citizen journalism, including often well-made videos posted on YouTube(1). And investigative journalists –represented as watchdogs of democracy– they were doing courageous reporting where they were becoming as whistleblowers of corruption cases linked to powerful governmental institutions and exposing powerful governmental and non-governmental figures.


This progress was an expansion to the merits media managed to seize after the promising media booming that was reminiscent of north-south unification developments during the 1990s: when we witnessed a convergence of government-owned and officially-approved publications being joined together. (This was also at the time when Yemen became the first country in the Arabian peninsula to hold competitive parliamentary elections under universal suffrage.)(2) Something to note also, which has been a trouble, during that post-unification era, there was a growing wave of media outlets being dependent on a certain political party or political personality or group – there has been little of truly independent media because it couldn’t finance itself; someone had to back it.


Now going back to the harsh condition of media in Yemen starting since 2014, as I mentioned earlier, and how it’ll continue to be so as it got affected by the ongoing war: in my opinion there have been two major events that took place since September of last year that are gravely affecting press in Yemen:

1) On the 21st of September, last year, the coup d'état carried out by a group of militias, called Ansar Allah, headed by Abdelmalek al Houthi represented a major setback to the overall security and political stability, and any democratic process for that matter in the country. Citizen’s rights and freedom of information in particular have been awfully violated. Many journalists have been the targets of threats, physical attacks or abduction by Houthi rebels. Rebels have also stormed many media outlets. Most importantly, following the coup, The rebels have been controlling official buildings, including the state radio and TV.

2) The second major event is the current war that erupted on the 26th of March, causing damage and destruction; and the war’s casualties include killing dozens of civilians, among them children and also media workers. The impact of the violence has left so far, more than one thousand death toll, more than five thousands injuries, more than three hundred thousand of IDPs, and more than two hundred thousand of refugees, and 7.5 million people are affected. In addition, there has been destruction of civilians’ houses, cities’ infrastructure and buildings; which includes a number of media houses. In this particular period, since the start of the war, State-owned Yemen Net, the largest internet service provider in the country, has continued to block websites over their coverage of the Saudi-led war against Houthi rebels. A number of local search news sites were blocked in late March, websites of the regional news networks Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya were also blocked for sometime. Few newspapers stopped publishing due to the lack of services like electricity and fuel. Also the access to twitter via the web was blocked (people only managed to access twitter via mobile apps) for sometime.


So this is all happening while the rebels are now in control of the capital Sana’a and its government offices, including the ministry of communications and information.

The matter is, media is only the edge of the restrictions made by Al Houthis. The real problem is that dozens of political activists, political figures, civil society activists, NGOs members, have been restricted by al Houthis’ censorship and aggression. Just last week, there has been a list of names(3) made to summon some figures who are active in the media to be held for interrogation by al Houthis’ men. Basically, Houthis want to prevent the flow of information so their ideas only can dominate.

Nonetheless, I would like to highlight an interesting aspect of the role of social media in the course of this war. I have experienced living a war during Yemen’s civil war in 1994, I was nine at that time but I remember how it was difficult to have an access to information, news and reports about what was going on. Internet did not exist at that time and we depended heavily on international radio channels as local ones were shut down for some reason or another and still those international radio channels were poorly aired – it was difficult to be informed from reliable media outlets about what was going on.


But, the role of social media in this war has been extremely impressive. The war is indeed tweeted and facebooked and youtubed and even instagrammed. There is a significant rise of citizen journalism that goes back to during the Yemen’s Uprising in 2011. I myself was among those Yemenis who turned towards the cyberspace as an alternative means to report news or express ourselves, and communicate with the international media and audiences. Citizen journalism was indeed part of the re-making of media not only in Yemen but in most of the Arab Spring’s countries. We, Yemeni citizen journalists at the beginning of 2011, were a handful of people, but today, there is no specific statistics how many social media users are in Yemen but I assure you we are countless. That might be attributed to the increase in the internet usage among Yemen’s 26 population over the past four years: in 2011 it was estimated that only 3% had access but today it is estimated that more than 15% people are using the internet.


This has both negative and positive aspects; since the internet is like a double-edged sword that has benefit and liability. Besides that Social media plays a role among citizen journalists, it is also used to a great extent, in my opinion, to spread hatred, to dehumanize people and to mislead. That makes the necessity of verification and affirming the credibility of the content being spread a very important issue. This all makes truth at stake during the current turbulent time.


Essentially, free press today in Yemen suffers from a counter-revolution era following the uprising in 2011. It’s a historical time for Yemen and definitely that includes the press. The new leadership is increasingly trying to control as much as media as they can, and even to control the digitalized media on the web which is hard to do. It is not clear how all those developments are going to shape the press future. But, no doubt, It is a difficult period for media while paradoxically at the same time there so much more opportunity the digital media can offer to produce a lot more of free information, but you can't do that in the context of being politically active inside the country. I must stress as well, there are some independent media outlets and workers, some of them do courageous work, despite being drained-out and ill-financed, they are still challenging the new emerging authoritarian rule in Yemen. I think it is extremely important to support these voices in any way possible and amplify their messages. Supporting free press starts with supporting independent media workers.


Lastly, I urge you all to join Yemeni people calling for an end of the violence that is causing a humanitarian catastrophe. Besides the increasing number of war’s casualties, airports in Yemen have been destroyed, borders with Yemen have been shut and many countries have been refusing Yemenis’ visa entry and there is a severe shortage of food and fuel as the country is in a state of being sieged – Yemen has become a large prison - it’s a living catastrophe. We request your solidarity because silence is a war crime too.

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1-http://www.al-bab.com/blog/2014/october/yemen-media.htm#sthash.Dcss25ig.TEvP5XFM.dpbs

2-http://www.al-bab.com/blog/2014/october/yemen-media.htm#sthash.Dcss25ig.TEvP5XFM.dpbs

3-https://twitter.com/hamzaalkamaly/status/593104132271185921