Yemen: Skyline expresses concern about the scaling up threats against journalists and calls on the executive authorities to prosecute violators

Stockholm - Skyline International for Human Rights states that the repeated threats and persecution of Yemeni journalists constitute a serious and unacceptable violation of international legal norms guaranteeing freedom of opinion, expression and journalistic work. It stresses that such incidents are indicative of the gruelling situation in the country at all levels, particularly the persecution of journalists by the various parties to the conflict.

In a statement released today, Tuesday, Skyline expresses concern over the threats that have reached journalist "Bassam Al-Ban", who works as the head of the website "Voice of the People's News" and director of the network "Monitored Journalist". The Yemeni "Media Freedom Observatory" said that it had received a report from "Al-Ban" stating that he had been sent "death threats" on his Facebook page by a person due to his journalistic work.

The Media Freedom Observatory condemned the threats against journalist "Al-Ban" and held the security authorities in Aden fully responsible for the journalist's safety, stressing the "need to hold accountable those behind this hostile violation of journalistic work."

For its part, "Skyline" points out that the situation in Yemen is steadily deteriorating in terms of media freedom, as the country is ranked 169th out of 180 countries according to the World Press Freedom Index 2021 published by Reporters Without Borders..

Skyline highlights the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate's report listing media freedom violations from 2015 to 2021, which found 1,359 media freedom violations, including 38 cases of murder. In February this year, 6 cases of violations against journalists were reported, including 3 threats, 2 arrests and one trial.

Accordingly, Skyline blame the parties to the conflict, especially the security authorities, of failing to protect journalists and sometimes violating their rights. The silence of the relevant authorities in the various Yemeni regions points to a possible complicity between these parties and the rights violators, Skyline says.

Skyline concludes its statement by calling on the Transitional Council in Aden to act swiftly to launch an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the repeated threats against journalists and to work to stop all forms of violations of freedom of opinion and expression by individuals or security services. It is forbidden for anyone to think of committing any offence against individuals, especially journalists.