Al-Wahdawi [Archives:2008/1124/Press Review]
Tuesday, January 22
Top Stories
– Interior Ministry prevents demonstration in solidarity with Palestine from approaching Egyptian Embassy
– NUPO Secretary General participates in the Palestinian National Conference
– Saudi authorities hide a Yemeni citizen, capture his brother without a clear reason
– Authorities tighten the noose on freedom of expression, block five electronic websites
– 20 African illegal immigrants die in adventurous trip to Yemen
– Yemeni Journalists Syndicate condemns blocking of YemenPortal.net
Yemeni Journalists Syndicate lashed out at authorities for blocking YemenPortal.net, a newly established news website run by former Yemen Times Editor-in-Chief Waled Abdulaziz Al-Saqqaf, and preventing readers inside Yemen from visiting the website, the weekly reported in a front page story.
The syndicate labeled blocking of YemenPortal.net as 'a flagrant violation of the freedom of press and expression', adding that the government always denies citizens their legal rights to obtain information in a way contravening the Constitution and Law.
YJS expressed its strong condemnation of the arbitrary procedures the government takes against press freedom in Yemen, regretting blocking of YemenPortal.net.
Stressing the necessity of the government showing respect for the law and having an independent judiciary to be concerned with press issues, the syndicate claimed the relevant agencies should quit such behaviors.
Readers in Yemen have been denied access to YemenPortal.net since Sunday, Jan. 20 without any clear reasons. Also International organizations and donor countries advocating press freedom had expressed concern about a deteriorating level of press freedom in recent years, citing beatings of journalists, newspapers closures and more recently, blocking of political websites.
——
[archive-e:1124-v:15-y:2008-d:2008-01-28-p:press]
