Defamation nother way of hassling media [Archives:2005/846/Opinion]
By Mohammed Hatem al-Qadhi
[email protected]
We have all been shocked by the defaming article published in the zero issue of al-Bilad weekly against Haifz al-Bukari, Secretary General of the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate (YJS) and his wife Rahmah Hujairah, head of the Yemen Female Media Forum. It is disgusting and awful language that the paper used in badmouthing the two journalists. All journalists were very much outraged by such kind of articles that aim to demolish the profession of journalism at large. The trash paper did not do that out of nothing, rather it showed through that piece that it is angry over the articles written by Hujairah and the stands taken by al-Bukari from his position in the YJS to defend freedom of media.
It seems that the political regime in Yemen is running out of all its tricks and ways of hassling journalists, opposition figures and human rights activists. Some days ago, the police invented the new accusation for the famous opposition writer Abdulraheem Muhsen. He was arrested under the pretext that he was driving heedlessly for being drunken. This is a silly joke and invited the laughter of everybody.
Now, it is the turn of our colleagues al-Bukari and Hujairah. The two guys were defamed and painted with a shameful language. There is no ground for such an attack against them expect for the fact that Hujairah wrote an article criticizing the behavior of the authorities in arresting Muhsen and the rule of President Saleh. Al-Bukari is trying his best to live up to the expectations of his colleagues in the YJS and stand by freedom of media and work against harassment of journalists. This is the stroke that broke the camel's back.
The authorities have tried several ways to gag journalists, sometimes by beating them up, putting them in jails or even accusing them of being agents or Zionists working for “foreign agencies to hamper the national interests”, splitting political parties, creating clown newspapers to compete strong and influential ones and many other kinds of such stuff.
The political regime understands well that that putting journalists in jail will break hell loose and will go against its commitments to the world to respect democracy, human rights and freedom of press. It understands that the donors are no longer ready to grant their money to totalitarian regimes that use such funds in oppressing their people.
As the rulers recognize the important and watchdog role some newspapers have started to play in reporting corruption issues and criticizing wrongdoings, they have started inventing a new way of silencing opposition voices, if even through funding yellow papers to play this role of defamation and abuse. As the ruling party directed its newspapers to stop fighting back against the opposition media writings, it has pushed some of their people to start new papers like al-Bilad and others to do the job, claiming they are independent papers.
In this way, the big guys believe that they will hit the nail on the head and do two jobs at the same time; one defaming and attacking critical voices calling for justice and an end for corruption, attempting to undermine their role of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable corrupt crooks. The other will be demolishing the noble value of the press and its role in informing the public and in democratization drive at large; it thinks this will make the press lose its credibility among the publich.
But, we as media professionals should not let up and be scared. Rather, we should continue to write and disclose the wrongdoings of the officials. We should also defend the professionalism of our profession through the YJS. If we work professionally, we will be able to make our voice heard. The attack against our colleagues whose honor cannot be questioned expect by such trash papers makes us know we are on the right track and doing the right job. Do not you think so?!
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[archive-e:846-v:13-y:2005-d:2005-05-30-p:opinion]
