الجمعة 29-03-2024 16:30:36 م : 19 - رمضان - 1445 هـ
آخر الاخبار

The enmity of journalists by the Houthi militia... ISIS practices confused the world

الأحد 10 يناير-كانون الثاني 2021 الساعة 12 مساءً / alislah-ye.net – Exclusive/ By: Abdulrahman Amin

 

 

The truth alone and the search for it is what constitutes the most prominent danger to all groups that are based on criminality, corruption and chaos, where we find that these groups are keen to keep all those reckless behaviors far from being seen and heard by the world.

And free, credible and transparent press remains the most important watchdog because its authority is the most worthy and its sword is the most powerful in the faces of all unjust, corrupt and tyrannical forces, which strive to dominate the media space to cover up events, obscure the facts and pass information according to their vision and desires.

The Yemeni media space has witnessed its second golden boom thanks to the peaceful popular revolution of February 11, 2011, after the fall of the regime of the ousted Ali Abdullah Saleh, where the number of newspapers rose to 260, of which 38 are governmental newspapers, 160 independent newspapers and 45 are partisan newspapers.

The official at the "Sahafaa.net" website, Yusri al-Athuri, estimates that the number of news websites has grown to more than 300 websites due to the growth in commercial advertisements before the Houthis blocked dozens of them.

However, what happened in Yemen after the Houthi militia’s coup against the legitimate government worked to undermine all this, so the emerging media space turned into a fertile environment of fabrications, fallacies and falsification of facts and information.

And the media and the press in Yemen are exposed to the largest ever unprecedented wave of repression and abuse, where the Houthis have practiced their terrorism against the Yemeni press by confiscating and looting all media institutions represented in television channels, newspapers, blocking websites, and forcibly hiding journalists and liquidating some of them.

The frenzied campaign against the press prompted the Houthi militia to storm and close the headquarters of dozens of media outlets, including Yemen Shabab and Suhail TV channels, in addition to daily and weekly newspapers such as Al-Ayyam newspapers, 14 October, Al-Jumhuriya, Hadeeth Al-Madenah, Al-Masdar, Akhbar Al-Youm, Al-Oula, Alsharee', Alsahwa, Alnas, Alahale, Alwasat, and other media outlets, which their headquarters have been looted by the Houthi militias, arrested their workers and fled their cadres outside and inside Yemen. The offices of all satellite channels, newspapers, and websites were closed and their equipment confiscated, while the militias took control of all state media institutions and used them to serve their ideas and projects imposed by force of arms by the militias.

The repercussions of tampering with the press reality were not limited to these means only, but the circle of targeting has expanded to affect news websites as well, where many news websites are no longer available for browsing by readers due to mass blocking turned those websites into electronic response lists of websites: (The page could not be found).

Since its invasion of the capital, Sana'a, the Houthi militia launched an unprecedented campaign of harassment against press affiliates on a large scale, where more than 20 journalists were arrested and the headquarters of various media outlets raided. The militias also assassinated 18 media and press affiliates with their snipers' fire in different Yemeni governorates in order to deliver a message to journalists that every journalist who opposes this group will be arrested and disappeared, and then death sentences are issued against him.

The Houthi militia has consistently waged smear campaigns against journalists opposed to its policies or against those who refuse to cooperate with it, and it has issued black lists against journalists who managed to leave the governorates controlled by the Houthi militia.

Incitement and hostility against the press and journalists did not come as haphazardly, rather, the Houthi militia practiced it and is still practicing it in a systematic and deliberate manner, where this is clearly evident through the speeches of its leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, as he described the journalists as "mercenaries and agents" and that they are "more dangerous than mercenaries fighting in the field...", calling on his fighters to confront them firmly, in an explicit incitement against the freedom of the press and its workers, and to consider everyone who opposes the group as a "traitor" who should be punished, imprisoned and abused.

Violations, transgressions and serious crimes that occur frequently in the Houthi-controlled areas, their repercussions of which usually end and are overlooked by the days without the completion of the picture and the clarity of the truth, as a result of the ambiguity surrounding it and the absence of details, due to the media blackout, the lack of required media coverage and the capture of the media scene by the Houthis.

Media freedoms in Yemen have reached the point of murder, detention, abduction, absenteeism, arbitrary dismissal from employment and cut off salaries, and other violations that have made Yemen classified as the most insecure countries for the work of journalists, due to the hostility of the repressive authorities against them.

According to the reports of the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate, the numbers reveal the extent of the suffering of Yemeni journalists, as press freedoms have been subjected to 1,250 violations, including 35 murders that have targeted journalists and photographers since the start of the war, which indicates that journalists work in an environment full of risks and insecurity and puts them and their families at risk. Where the Houthi group remains the most hostile group towards journalists, as Reporters Without Borders described the Houthi group four years ago as the second group after ISIS in targeting journalists, following its repressive policy and targeting journalists during that period.

According to a statement issued by the Yemeni Coalition for Monitoring Human Rights Violations (RASD) last year on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, the statement indicated that Yemen ranks 168th in the world according to the global classification of press freedom, since the coup carried out by the Houthi militia against the state in September 2014, due to the deterioration of press freedom and media work in Yemen and the risks Yemeni journalists face.

Since the beginning of its control, the armed group has practiced the most horrific violations against journalists, and it has been ranked second in the list of groups that are hostile to the press in the world after ISIS, according to Reporters Without Borders, which deals with freedom of the press.

In the year 2019 only, the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate recorded 134 violations were practiced against media and journalists' rights, and Yemen ranked the lowest (167 out of 180) in the 2020 Press Freedom Index issued by the same organization.

On last April 11th, a court under the control of the Houthi militia in Sana'a had issued a ruling convicting 10 journalists who were abducted there for more than 5 years, and the court ruled to punish 4 of them with death and 6 others to imprisonment.

In its statement, the Yemeni National Organization of Yemeni Reporters "Sada" says that it has received reports and information confirming the deteriorating health status of the journalists abducted since June 19, 2015.

The organization adds that the diseases that these abducted persons suffer from vary between spinal disc herniation, rheumatism, liver diseases, diabetes, stomach ulcers and malnutrition, in addition to the injury of most of them with the deterioration of vision in the eyes and psychological states as a result of the length of their detention.

The term "solidarity" remains an imperative for press and human rights organizations and associations, colleagues in the profession and the word to stand by their Yemeni colleagues in order to support within the framework of what is possible and available to reach a stage of fairness for their Yemeni colleagues who were lost by the war most of their press outlets and tampered with their reality, which was crowned with a democratic margin that was much better Than it is after the invasion of Sanaa.