SANAA, 27 December 2004 — Four Yemeni journalists were convicted yesterday of trying to harm their country’s relations with Saudi Arabia by publishing articles that insulted the Kingdom.
The South-Western District Court, which handles press-related cases, handed suspended prison sentences ranging from four to six months to chief editors of the opposition Al-Ehyaa Al-Araby and Al-Tajamou newspapers and two of their writers.
Al-Ehyaa Al-Araby Editor in Chief Abdul Wahid Hawash and columnist Abdul Jabbar Saad each received six-month suspended prison terms.
Hawash was convicted of publishing a series of articles written by Saad “containing insults against a brotherly country and promoting terrorism”.
In a series of articles published by the paper last May, Saad criticized Saudi Arabia’s crackdown on militants as part of its war on terror.
The Yemeni Information Ministry sent the two men to trial on May 19 after ruling that the articles violated the Press Law, harmed Yemen’s relations with Saudi Arabia, and promoted terrorism, extremism and their perpetrators.
A third suspended six-month prison sentence was handed to the editor in chief of the Al-Tajamou weekly for reporting in March about an alleged assassination attempt on Crown Prince Abdullah.
Nabil Subaye, a journalist with the paper, got a four-month suspended jail sentence under similar charges.
A Yemeni state-run newspaper reported in May that Abdul Jabbar Saad was dismissed from his post as director of the Customs Authority in Hodaidah for abusing his post through his attempts to damage Yemeni-Saudi ties.
In a front-page editorial, the Ath-Thawra daily extended Yemen’s apologies to the Saudi leadership for those insults.
