112 violations of press freedom in Yemen in 2020

English - Wednesday 06 January 2021 الساعة 04:08 pm
Aden, NewsYemen:

The Yemeni Journalists Syndicate said, on Tuesday, that it monitored 112 cases of violations of press freedom in Yemen during the past year 2020.

The Syndicate said in its annual report on the status of press freedoms in Yemen for the year 2020, that these violations affected journalists, photographers, their properties and media centers.


The report stated that the violations "varied between kidnappings and arrests in 33 cases, accounting for 29.5% of the total violations, followed by threats and incitement against journalists in 22 cases, or 19.6%, then prevention and confiscation in 13 cases, or 11.6%, and trials and investigations with 10  Cases of 8.9%, then suspension from work with 10 cases, or 8.9%, followed by torture with 7 cases, 6.3%, 6 cases of assaults, 5.4%, and 3 cases of murder, 2.7%.

The Syndicate documented 3 cases of killing journalists and photographers, two of which were recorded against unknown persons and one case committed by the Houthis.

The Syndicate also documented 8 cases of torture of journalists on the grounds of their professional identity, half of which were committed by the Houthis.

The report stated that the year 2020 witnessed the harassment of journalists and dragging them to the courts, as the Syndicate monitored 10 cases of judicial harassment, including 5 trial cases, including four death sentences issued for journalists who were arbitrarily kidnapped in 2015 by the Houthi militia and subjected to a long series of abuse, the most recent of which are these unfair rulings.

The Journalists Syndicate stated that there are 13 journalists still kidnapped, 11 of them were kidnapped by the Houthi militia, some of them more than five years ago, and a journalist is still kidnapped by Al-Qaeda since October 12, 2015, and a photojournalist has been arrested by government authorities in Hadramout since May 29, 2020.