Saatar Arrested & Released Saleh orders stop of media barrage against Islah [Archives:2002/26/Local News]

aMr. Abdullah Saatar, member of the Islah party was arrested on Thursday in Al-Dale governorate by the intelligence services. He was released in the late evening of the same day after a four-hour meeting between president Saleh and Sheik Abdullah al-Ahmar, Islah president. The meeting resulted in the rapid release of the Islah leading member, albeit with his pistol remaining detained in police custody.
Saatar denounced his arrest and described it as evidence of the government backsliding into the attitudes of the totalitarian era. He said that he had been arrested for mobilizing public opinion against the government. . He stressed that law and constitution should be respected as they ensure the peoples rights to free speech, and argued that questioning the government was a duty of an opposition politician in a democracy.
Two days before his arrest Saatar had delivered a sermon in al-Dale great mosque in which he ruthlessly criticized the government, holding its accountable for the ailments, sufferings and poverty majority of Yemeni citizens are going through.
On the same day the Islah political department was summoned for an emergency meeting, but was forced to cancel it at the last moment after Al-Ahmar and President Saleh himself threatened dire consequences if the meeting went ahead.
The arrest of Saatar follows reports that president Saleh ordered the government and his party not to respond to the Islahs media barrage against the ruling party. Simultaneously Islah has apparently agreed to halt its present media offensive against the government if in return President Salah and the government recognized Islahs right to criticize government policy. At present however the government prefers dispatching the secret police whenever an Islah spokesman reproaches the government over its numerous policy failures.
In recent months rivalry between Islah and the ruling party has increased markedly with the two parties increasingly accused the other of terrorism and treason. The two parties are the biggest competitors in the next April parliamentary elections.

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