Working conditions for journalists in Yemen worsened in 2006, says the Worldwide Press Freedom Index, an annual report published by the French organization Reporters Without Borders. In fact, the report found, only 18 countries in the world have less press freedom than Yemen does.
Out of the 168 counties surveyed, Yemen ranked 149th in 2006, down from 136th last year. The countries at the top of the list—those with the freest presses—are mainly European, and include Finland, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic.
Denmark, which ranked 19th, was dropped from joint first place because of serious threats leveled against the authors of the cartoons picturing the Prophet Mohammad, published there in the autumn of 2005. For the first time in recent years in a country that is very observant of civil liberties, journalists had to have police protection due to threats against them because of their work.
“The most repressive countries are still the same ones. Unfortunately, nothing has changed in the countries that are the worst predators of press freedom,” the organization said. “And journalists in North Korea, Eritrea, Turkmenistan, Cuba, Burma and China are still risking their life or imprisonment for trying to keep us informed. These situations are extremely serious, and it is urgent that leaders of these countries accept criticism and stop routinely cracking down on the media so harshly.”
Yemen slipped a few places mainly because of the arrest of several journalists and the closure of newspapers (including the Yemen Observer) that reprinted cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in 2005. Journalists were harassed for the same reason in Algeria, Jordan, Indonesia and India. But except for Yemen and Saudi Arabia (161th), all the Arabian Peninsula countries considerably improved their rank. Kuwait (73rd) kept its place at the top of the group, just ahead of the United Arab Emirates (77th) and Qatar (80th).
In its October 25 edition, News Yemen, an independent news website, reported that: “Ali al-Jaradi, the media official at the Yemeni Journalists’ Syndicate, stated that Yemen was in need of a political decision to put an end to the major deterioration in terms of the freedom of the press, so that the judiciary becomes the only party that is entitled to issue decisions regarding the different cases.”
The index measures the state of press freedom in the world. It reflects the degree of freedom journalists and news organizations enjoy in each country, and the efforts made by the state to respect and ensure respect for this freedom.
It does not examine human rights violations in general, just press freedom violations. Mohammad, who works as a reporter for a Yemeni Arab-language daily and didn’t want to give his full name, said that he felt that freedom of the press is indeed decreasing in Yemen.
“I haven’t been threatened directly,” he said. “But some problems colleagues had in the past made me feel that too much criticism is not always welcome. That was especially true in the time before the elections.” Mohammad added that he stills feels relative freedom to express his opinion in Yemen. “One of my friends works as a journalist in Saudi Arabia. The situation there is much more tense.”
The index was published only a few days after the French TV reporter Daniel Grandclément-Chaffy was released after being held for five days in Yemen. He was detained by the Yemeni immigration authorities for “entering the country illegally,” although he had a visa.
Grandclément-Chaffy, who was preparing a report on Somali refugees, was arrested in the southeastern province of Shabwah on his arrival in a boat that had brought a group of clandestine immigrants across the Gulf of Aden.
Apart from pressure from governments or regimes, war seems to be one important reason for limitations on the freedom of the media. Lebanon, for example, has fallen from 56th to 107th place, as the country’s media continues to suffer from the region’s poisonous political atmosphere, with a series of bomb attacks in 2005 and Israeli military attacks this year.
The Lebanese media, which include some of the freest and most experienced in the Arab world, desperately needs peace and guarantees of security. Furthermore, freedom of the press in the Middle East is seriously threatened by the inability of the Palestinian Authority (134th) to maintain stability in its territories and the behavior of Israel (135th) outside its borders.
Copyright 2002 - 2006 Yemen Observer
