Yemen
Yemeni Journalists’ Syndicate attackedPosted Mar 10 2011
Three men in a marked police vehicle stormed the Journalists’ Syndicate in Yemen’s capitol city of Sanaa on Feb. 26. The syndicate head, Marwan Damaj, told CPJ that the men called journalists traitors and threatened to teach them a lesson. Damaj filed a complaint with the Interior Ministry, which told him that the government had nothing to do with the harassment.
Damaj told CPJ that “there is anger from security forces and an attempt to prevent the press from covering the anti-government demonstrations.”
Al Jazeera correspondents Abdulhaq Sadah and Ahmed Zaidan were not allowed to cover a sit-in at Change Square in Sanaa and told to leave the country on Feb. 26, according to Reporters Without Borders. “It was the second time the authorities have tried to ban these two journalists from coving the anti-government protests taking place in several Yemen’s cities.”
The local independent news site, Masdar Online, was blocked for the fifth time on Feb. 26 since its launch in 2009, according to Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists.