Demonstration law has been considered by some politicians as: Against law [Archives:2003/53/Front Page]

The demonstration law has been postponed by the parliament till preparing the law in its entirety.
The law was discussed by parliamentarians last week where some of its articles have been still under discussion. This has come after the rejection made by the opposition parties.This law has been considered by those parties as a confiscation of rights and freedoms in favor of the corrupt and corruption.
A statement issued by the Joint Meeting Parities (JMP) on 18 December called the citizens and civil society organizations to oppose the law, which is according to statement, against the law and constitution. It is regarded as a penalty imposed to prevent people from the right to expression and the right to protest “Passing such a law will create undeclared state of emergency which can serve just corruption, wrong practices and innumerable injustices.
The law was previously presented for discussions in 1998 and since then it hasn’t been discussed for being widely rejected.
According to the demonstration law, the security men have the right to prevent staging demonstrations and therefore a request has to be presented three days before staging a demonstration.
The law also says that he who wants to stage a demonstration has to set up a committee for informing the concerned bodies of the time and venue the activity including its motives, its causes, along with writing down committee members names and their addresses.
The law says that the body which stages the demonstration has to be a political party, an organization or vocational syndicate. The security bodies have to review the bulletin within 48 hours starting from the date of submitting it.
Yemen Times has reviewed this issue and met two members of the JMP and others to know all there is to know about the new law.
Dr. Saif Sayel, a member of the politburo of the Yemeni Socialist Party, YSP, declared that his party would oppose the demonstration law along with other opposition parties. “We will demand the parliament to nullify the law.,” he said.
Lawyer Mohammed al-Mekhlafi said the new demonstration law is violation of the right of expression “I hope that the law will not be issued otherwise democracy will be in danger.”
As opposed to this, Mr. Abdullah Ghanem, minister of legal affairs says the law aims organizing the right of expression and does not aim at narrowing the democratic margin, as opposition parties claim.
“The demonstration law has been enacted for the sake of safety and stability against chaos and disturbance. That is what has been presented to the parliament,” Mr. Ghanem said.
On his part, Dr. Abdulwahb al-Anesi, of the Islah Party said: “We will adopt the peaceful means together with the opposition parties to reject the law including delivering a letter to the president to nullify the law.”
“The citizen has the right to express his opinion freely. The government in this case hasn’t acted wisely. The demonstration law is against the law itself. The government has to bring a consolidated stance towards the law and not to make less effect of it,” he said.
Al-Anesi noted that his party didn’t see any justifications on the part of the government to regulate this right.
In response whether the government intends to provoke the public opinion as it has happened in the previous demonstrations, al-Anesi said that when a citizen practices certain things which are against the law and the constitution, the government in this case has the right to take them to court.
Ahmed Abdurahman Saleh, a citizen said: “We don’t know what do they want from the law. Perhaps they want to gag the people’s mouths for not staging any demonstrations.

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