Protests freed pioneering editor
YEMENI website editor Abdul Karim al-Khaiwani has been freed from a six-year jail term for supposedly “supporting a terrorist group”.
Yemen’s President, Ali Abdullah, attended the country’s journalists’ union congress in March to announce that the charges would be dropped and confirm that he had pardoned the editor.
Abdul Al-Khaiwani, former editor-in-chief of the opposition paper Al-Shoura and now editor of al-Shoura.net, has repeatedly been targeted by the state. Last year he was prevented from travelling to London to receive Amnesty International’s human rights media award. There was a strong international campaign for his release.
In London the award was accepted on his behalf by Jim Boumelha, President of the International Federation of Journalists and a member of the NUJ’s national executive. And Jim Boumelha was at the congress in the Yemeni capital of Sana’a to pass it on.
Receiving the award in front of a rapturous audience of several hundred journalists, the editor said: “This award is also recognition for Yemeni journalism and Yemeni journalists. It sends a message to Yemeni journalists that they are not alone in the face of authoritarianism, corruption and violation of human rights.”