Al-Shoura [Archives:2004/728/Press Review]

7 Apr 2004
Main headlines
– Seven killed, 4 wounded in a tribal clash between Dam and Weal
– Military commanders stop work in emergency department of Olfi hospital in Hudeidah
– Hand grenade went off in Mithaq Street in the capital, wounding four children
– Horrendous traffic accident kills 8 and injures others in Yarim
– Verdict on imprisonment of student activist
– Mass organisations in Taiz refuse any new price dose
– An advocates committee for defending Yemenis and Arab detainees in Guantanamo free of charge
– Symposium on civil education organised by the Woman Forum
– Winner of Hael Saed prizes announced
Columnist Jammal A'mer says when America threatens; leaders of the Arab regimes begin to revise their history that is full of domination and begin to take out some papers of their suppressive records. Some of them would waver with the paper of democracy and others with that pertaining to human rights to record on them promises of elections and so on that in fact would only bring about more domination.
The Arab environment is almost similar in all results and identical in conclusions though the may differ in data and realities. Democracy and elections bring forth the same on-man despotic ruler and the republics with their ruler are in fact kings and emirs in action and also in inheritance. The peoples are also treated in the same way whether in a republic or a kingdom. They are trodden with big shoes of the rulers to an extent one would think that the Arab world is revolving inside a vicious circle. The key of this circle seems to be in the hands of America and not in our hand. Our rulers make slogans of democracy and human rights more brilliant to blur our eyes when they and to blind our eyes and to see them more shining though they know they drive us like herds of cattle to their stockade when they grant us some of our rights under the threat of their whips, making run towards them at a time the souls are killed, dignities humiliated and arrests increase.
In our country we do not know to whom we shall complain is it to our government or to the American embassy represented by its ambassador Edmond Hull to attract the attention to the hundreds of detainees, some of them children, just because they said something rating the least of what is said by an American citizen against his authorities. There they applaud to him and here is beaten and tried. One wonders if democracy in America has different meanings and applications, although this is quite apparent in Iraq under the American occupation.
We just want to remind Hull that Yemen is still a sovereign country and its sovereignty is recognised and this reality should curb his authorities in favour of the Yemeni state and to consider those protesting inside the Grand Mosque are similar to the angry people in the American streets and parks. Finally we seek from Hull an explanation of his relation with the arrests carried out in the Grand Mosque every week because of opposing the policy of his country.
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