Assassinated, imprisoned, exiled
Adeeb al-Janani, a reporter for the private Yemeni television station Belqees TV, was killed at the airport in Aden on 30 December 2020 while reporting on the return of the Yemeni government from negotiations in Saudi Arabia. A large crowd of people attended his funeral in Taizz
Photo: Hussam Al-Qoliaa
Adeeb al-Jabani was killed in 2020 in a Houthi drone attack on the airport in Aden
Foto: privat
Ten years of war and destruction have repeatedly redrawn the borders between the spheres of influence of Yemen’s warring factions. More than 60 percent of the country is currently under the control of the internationally recognized government which is supported by Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, the Houthi contingent govern approximately 30 percent of Yemen’s territory, including the densely populated northern parts of the country and the capital Sana’a.
The warring parties sometimes control different areas within the same governorate. The situation is particularly extreme in the governorate of Taiz in the south, where the front lines between the warring camps cross each other and even run through the city of Taiz itself.
Yemen is a country in tatters. Even in areas nominally under the control of the central government, multiple different factions call the shots. These include the Al-Islah party, which is close to the Muslim Brotherhood; the troops of Tareq Mohammed Abdullah Saleh, a nephew of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who is supported by the United Arab Emirates; and the separatist Southern Transitional Council, which is seeking to secede the southern part of the country and is also supported by the UAE.
When journalism is life-threatening
When I am asked about the state of the media in Yemen, I am overcome by a feeling of oppression. Memories I would rather forget come flooding back.
The journalist Faiz Abdo used to work for the media organization Al Wahdawi, today he earns money as a street vendor. A passer-by took this photo for him
Photo: private
Images of dead journalists lying in a pool of their own blood on the street. The sounds of the Houthi artillery as it bombarded the state television building in Sanaa. The mental images of colleagues who have lost their jobs and are now eking out a living as street vendors or working as laborers in construction.
Just how dangerous it is to work as a journalist varies from place to place and depends on who is in power. The most dangerous areas are those controlled by the Houthi movement, but even in cities under government control, journalists do not feel particularly safe or possess freedom of movement. Cities such as Marib, which is effectively ruled by the Al-Islah party, and Aden, where the Southern Transitional Council is in control, are also no havens of press freedom.
There, those who criticise the ruling elites, as a journalist or as a social media activist, can expect to be abducted or imprisoned. Arbitrary accusations of being a terrorist or disrespecting religion and the army are not infrequent. However, the overall risk is still lower than in the Houthi-controlled regions.
In September 2015, on the first anniversary of the Houthi takeover of the capital Sana’a, the Houthi leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, launched a vitriolic televised attack on media professionals, calling them “traitors and stooges, who pose an even greater threat than enemy fighters on the war fronts”. Al-Houthi gave his fighters an unequivocal order to take action against the media.
A wave of raids and arrests followed. The Houthi rebels took control of the state media and banned all non-state media organisations. In the years since, Yemen has experienced attacks on media freedom – murders, death sentences and kidnappings – on a scale rarely seen before. Brutality and terror have taken hold in Sana’a. To its citizens, the city is no longer recognisable. All voices in it are drowned out by the noise of the Houthi movement.
A working environment of permanent insecurity
According to a report by the Paris-based organisation, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Yemen ranked 154th in the 2024 World Press Freedom Index. In their 2016 rankings of groups responsible for crimes against journalists, the Houthis was placed second, just behind the terrorist organisation, Islamic State (IS). According to a United Nations report on the state of journalism in Yemen: “The list of attacks on media professionals in Yemen is unprecedented: murders, beatings, kidnappings, intimidation, detentions, death sentences”.
The Yemeni Journalists Syndicate (YJS), a professional organisation for media professionals, estimates that 50 journalists have been killed (many of them murdered) since 2011. The YJS itself has also been targeted. The Houthis closed the syndicate’s headquarters in the capital, Sana’a, and froze its bank accounts.
In June this year, the Secretary General of YJS, Mohammed Shubaita was shot in Sana’a. The exact circumstances of this incident, in which his cousin was killed and he himself was seriously injured, have yet to be clarified. Shubaita remains in Jordan for medical treatment; the Houthis are blocking any judicial investigation into the incident.
Photojournalist Rasha al-Harazi and her husband, correspondent Mahmoud al-Atmi, fell victim of a car bomb attack. She did not survive the attack, he was heavily injured
Photo: private
Bloody scenario
Mahmoud al-Atmi, a correspondent for the news channels Al-Arabiya and Al-Hadath in Aden, was the victim of a murder attempt using a car bomb. His wife Rasha al-Harazi, a photojournalist, and their unborn child were killed, and he himself suffered serious injuries. He reports: “On 9 November 2021, just hours before my wife Rasha and I were due to have our second child, we were victims of a horrific terrorist attack. Our car exploded on the way to the hospital where our child was to be born.”
Mahmoud al-Atmi blames the Houthi militia for the crime: “A few days before the attack, I received information that Houthis were making inquiries about my political orientation, where I lived and where else I stayed.” According to al-Atmi, the police in Aden have since arrested some suspects who confessed to carrying out the attack and to belonging to a terrorist cell operating in the southern Yemen region around Aden and Lahidj.
Al-Atmi explains that the same perpetrators were already involved in the 2020 assassination of AFP photographer Nabil Hasan al-Quaety in Aden. In mid-June 2022, journalist Saber al-Haidari was also killed by a car bomb.
Death sentences and torture
Alongside such killings, the Houthi movement has also abducted dozens of journalists since seizing power in 2014, sentencing five of them to death. One of them was Abdulraqib al-Jabihi, a 69-year-old accused of “espionage for a foreign state”, in this case Saudi Arabia. He was released several months later.
On 11 April 2020, after six years of torture in prison, the four other defendants, Tawfiq al-Mansouri, Abdelkhaleq Amran, Akram al-Walidi and Hareth Hamid, were also sentenced to death for “treason and espionage for foreign states”. Two years later, on 16 April 2022, they were released as part of a prisoner exchange between the Houthi authorities and Yemen’s internationally recognised government.
Abdelkhaleq Amran gave an eyewitness account of what was done to them in the Houthi prisons: “We were hung from the ceilings of our cells with our hands and feet tied. They put out cigarettes on our bodies. As a form of psychological torture, they acted as if they were executing us. During each interrogation, they threatened to slaughter us by holding a curved dagger to our throats. They kept saying that we should be killed and our heads displayed at Bab al-Yemen [the historic gate to the old city of Sana’a; editor’s note]. That we would be nothing more than numbers, no one would remember us.”
The journalists reported being beaten with rifle butts and iron rods, and having their heads slammed against the cell walls. They were allegedly forced to stand for hours, doused with ice-cold water while naked and tortured with electric shocks.
Women and journalism in Yemen
For female media workers in Yemen, the situation is particularly difficult. Three women journalists have been killed in Yemen to date. In addition to the photojournalist Rasha al-Harazi, television editor Suad Hujaira died in a Saudi air raid on her house in Sana’a in 2016. Her husband Munir al-Hakimi, who like Hujaira worked at Yemen TV, and their three children were also killed. In 2015 Jamila Jamil, who worked for the government-run Aden TV, died in mysterious circumstances in Sana’a .
In Yemen, female journalists are not only subject to work-related security risks but also suffer from religiously motivated misogyny, reflected in discriminatory laws and the rhetoric of extremist religious groups. Large sections of society are hostile to women working in journalism. In Yemen, it is easy to silence women and sometimes, to break their will. Numerous female journalists have been subjected to systematic smear campaigns by political or religious groups. The aim is always to intimidate them for daring to express uncomfortable opinions in public.
Women journalists are fighting a war on many fronts. They struggle to make a living and to defend their rights. They are in a permanent confrontation with ultra-reactionary religious groups. They are often subjected to sexual harassment and blackmail. The perpetrators take advantage of the fact that the women do not want to lose their jobs.
Women are not given management positions in the media, state-run or otherwise. Even in progressive organisations, the situation rarely differs. On the board of the YJS association, for example, there is only one woman among 13 members.
The war has cost Yemeni women a great deal, including the few achievements they previously fought for, and won. This is particularly true in regions under the control of Houthi militias, where strict restrictions apply to women. Without the accompaniment of a male first-degree relative, for example, they have no freedom of movement.
Risking their lives while reporting
Due to the war and in the face of increasing threats, many media professionals have left the country. As a result, reporting – in particular war reporting – has been left to young, inexperienced journalists who often find themselves in the middle of a war zone while doing their job. Some employers view this as a cost-effective alternative; it suits them to use inexperienced employees, who are swept along by naive enthusiasm and are often desperate for any fee, no matter how small.
Without security measures, without training in war reporting, these young journalists are sent on life-threatening assignments by their employers. Small wonder that the years in which the war raged unchecked were also the bloodiest years in the history of Yemeni journalism.