Shall we celebrate or mourn and cry? It seems that the meaning is the same, as we learned from Heraclitus: “The meaning of life and death is one,” and from the wisdom of Abu Al-Ala Al-Ma’arri: “Did that dove cry or sing?” The moment of birth is the moment of death, according to the wise Al-Ma’arri.

Today we celebrate the 31st anniversary of Yemeni Press Day, and the catastrophe is imminent; On the ninth day of June 1990; That is, nineteen days after the establishment of Yemeni unity, the first unification conference was held in Sana'a. It was followed by the unification of entities such as Union of Journalists along with the union of doctors, lawyers, the Yemeni Women’s Union, engineers, and others. As for the unions of workers, students, youth, and writers, they have been unified even before the official unification.

Unification was the fruit of journalists’ insistence on uniting since the establishment of the Journalists’ Association in Sana’a on April 22, 1976, and the Organization of Democratic Journalists in Aden on May 5, 1976, following the founding of Pravda, the birth of Karl Marx, and a given of the unity’s outcomes. The unification conference, which was attended by one hundred and thirty-one delegates from the north and south, was held under the slogan (Towards Strengthening the Role of Yemeni Journalists in Protecting the Republic, Consolidating National Unity, Democracy, and Modernizing Society).

For the first time after the outbreak of the Yemeni revolutions in September 1962 and October 1963, public freedoms and democracy were launched. The constitution of the Unity State recognized political and partisan pluralism. The banned secret parties announced themselves, formed new parties, and enacted a press law that recognized freedom of opinion and expression, and lifted previous and subsequent censorship. Despite the restrictions included in the law regarding licensing to practice the profession, and the right to grant a press card by the Ministry of Information; This was rejected by the journalists from the beginning, but they reached a compromise solution regarding the press card, while the restrictions imposed on the licensing remained in place. However, the journalists had also rejected the articles that deprive of liberty, restrict the right to obtain information, prison penalties, fines, suspension from practicing the profession, and the double extensive penalties. Notwithstanding the relative openness and the democratic margin, the intrigues and conflict between the two key parties to the government: the People's Congress and the Yemeni Socialist Party, the influence of traditional forces and political Islam - was inciting and pushing for confrontation, and narrowed the unrest in violence and political assassinations, and the mobilization for the 1994 war against political freedoms, and more and more stifled freedom of opinion and expression.

During the last five months, the Journalists Syndicate monitored number of violations during the last five months which reached 35 cases of violations including; the closure of six local radio stations for administrative reasons related to illegal permits and fees, and “Sawt al-Yemen” radio station is still suspended due to the intransigence of the Ministry of Information.

The catastrophe for Yemen and the Yemenis was the 1994 war, and later the six Sa’ada wars that marginalized freedoms, criminalized press freedoms, brought back divisions, and even what is worse than divisions.

In the Journalist Syndicate, we refused to dismiss our colleagues in the General Secretariat and the Central Council of the Syndicate, who sought refuge from the war in other countries. Colleagues who condemned the war and exposed its crimes were tried on charges of high treason, unfair trials took place against many newspapers and journalists and newspaper headquarters were looted while many journalists were beaten, dismissed from their jobs, and prevented from working. The opposition and independent journalists, along with the independent opposition and civil press, were the first victims, such as "The Labor Voice, Al-Wahdawi, Shura, Al-Ayyam, Al-Mustaqbal, Al-Thawri, Al-Nida, Al-Usbo', Hadith Al-Madina, Al-Oula, Al-Share`, Yemen Times, Al-Ummah, Al-Wasat, Al-Maseer, Al-Jamaheer, and the Arab revival. Moreover, the independent national newspaper of Al-Ayyam had a plentiful share of suppression; Two wars were waged against it, some of its editors were imprisoned, its guard was sentenced to death, and journalists were subjected to cruel and unprecedented punishments, and its equipment and archives were looted.

The tragedy is that the comprehensive repression and persecution suffered by journalists and the press freedom seems merciful if we compare it to what happened after the war of the coup of president Saleh and Ansar Allah as well as the aggression of the Saudi-led Arab coalition.

We have mentioned some of the names of the newspapers that were subjected to harassment and punishment, in order to reach the core of the tragedy; And it is that all these newspapers and others, and even official newspapers in Taiz and Aden, have been suspended due to the war. As for the heads and staff of these newspapers, some of them left the country for safety, and many left the profession, were dismissed, arrested and many were killed, and the TV channels were shut, and there was nothing left in Yemen except the tools of the war propaganda, incitement to hatred and violence attributed to the militias, halting salaries, dismissal and laying off were among the harshest punishments.

The Journalists Syndicate has monitored a number of violations during the last five months, which amounted to 35 violations; Including the closure of six local radio stations for administrative reasons related to illegal permits and fees, and "Voice of Yemen" radio station is still suspended due to the intransigence of the Ministry of Information.

The Syndicate also recorded five cases of torture against the kidnapped journalists who were sentenced to death, and there are nine journalists kidnapped by different parties, eight of whom are held by Ansar Allah (Houthis), and they are: Waheed Al-Sufi, Abdul-Khaleq Imran, Tawfiq Al-Mansoori, Akram Al-Walidi, Harith Hamid, and Muhammad Abdu Al-Salahi. Muhammad Ali al-Junaid and Younis Abd al-Salam - all of them forcibly disappeared. Muhammad Qaid al-Maqri has been forcibly disappeared by al-Qaeda in Hadhramaut since 2015. Journalists Abdul-Khaleq Omran, Tawfiq al-Mansoori, Akram al-Walidy and Harith Hamid are facing an arbitrary death sentence from a security court without the availability of the simplest standards of fair trial and peaceful procedure.

Lawyer Abdul Majeed Sabra and the Journalists Syndicate are calling for dropping the unjust sentences and the ready-made charges that claim that these journalists stand in the side of the aggression against Yemen, and as for the humanitarian side, they are prohibited from seeing their familties, and the only way to reassure their relatives is to communicate over the phone from time to time, according to statements their lawyer; He stressed that their condition is very miserable, and that journalist Tawfiq Al-Mansoori suffers from heart, pressure, and diabetes, and he was not allowed to be discharged to the hospital, even at the expense of his family, according to the testimony of some of his colleagues.

Furthermore, the Syndicate has recorded the killing of photojournalist Fawaz Al-Wafi in Taiz, and the killing of journalists in Yemen has reached 49, from 2011 to March 2022.

Given all of the above violations against press, Yemen is now ranked 169th in the Press Freedom Index, as one of the most dangerous countries for press freedoms, and the horror is that there are dozens of militias, and unbridled terrorism, all of which are stalking the journalist - witness the reality of war crimes, human rights violations, and crimes against humanity. 

Lawyers for Mwatana Organization were present in these trials as well, but the defect stemmed from the absence of a strong and pressing public opinion against systematic repression, and the absence of the voice of the parties that were distributed on the war map, and no longer defended even their members, whereas Arab and international public opinion is not concerned about such issues. What is terrifying is that there is no accountability for these crimes in the entire Arab region. If the Arab region is the most dangerous to the press, according to UNESCO, Yemen is at the forefront.

Israel is killing witnesses to the truth, male and female journalists, the last of whom are Shireen Abu Aqleh and Ghufran Haroun; on the grounds of protecting its settlement occupation and apartheid, while the Arab ruler kills the journalist who are the witnesses on their corruption and tyranny, in cooperation with Israel.

The Arab ruler and the Arab government do not only embody a threat to press and public freedoms, but their danger extends to the national entity and the entire nation.

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