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press releases & Protests
January 31, 2008
His Excellency Abubakr Al-Qirbi, Minister of Foreign Affairs
His Excellency Kamal Al-Jabri, Minister of Telecommunications
His Excellency Hassan Al-Lawzi, Minister of Information
Members of the Yemeni Government
Sana’a, Yemen
Your Excellencies:
The World Press Freedom Committee —an organization representing 45 press freedom groups from throughout the world— joins its voice to the international condemnation of your decision to shut down the independent website www.yemenportal.net, an action that violates both your own constitution and the most widely accepted international press freedom principles.
Your unjust decision, taken earlier this month, stems from a series of articles published by www.yemenportal.net which made Yemeni public officials uncomfortable. Allegedly, your country’s security agencies deemed the articles as “threats to national security,” the same reason argued to ban numerous other websites serving Yemeni users.
As a consequence of this arbitrary decision, www.yemenportal.net has seen its traffic reduced by more than 70 percent and left most users in Yemen without a valuable source of information, opinions and news about matters of public interest.
This unjust decision represents a clear violation of Yemen’s constitutional rights and of the world’s most widely accepted human rights conventions. This fundamental concept of freedom of the press and of expression is consecrated in two of the world’s most important human rights documents:
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:
Everyone has the right to freedom of expression and opinion; this right includes
the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and
impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
And Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights declares:
Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include
freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without
interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.
Both articles leave no doubt about the imperative for the members of a society to enjoy, without any kind of obstacle, their right to be duly informed. Your shutting down www.yemenportal.net and several other websites serving Yemen is a clear attack on these two fundamental postulates.
Moreover, both the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights and the recommendations of the UN Commission on Human Rights support the concept that public officials should expect more, and not less, scrutiny and criticism from the rest of society. This acceptance of being a willing target of the media’s slings and arrows also implies public officials should restrain themselves from shutting down media outlets to silence criticism directed at them.
The attempts to silence www.yemenportal.net and the other websites send a disturbing message to all press freedom forces in your country and abroad. Media outlets such as those constitute a vital component to the Yemeni society. Without a free and independent media, government officials cannot be held accountable and responsive to the rest of society. Without this essential ingredient, transparency and good governance become impossible to achieve.
Therefore, your Excellencies, we urge you to reconsider your decision immediately and make www.yemenportal.net and the rest of the banned websites fully accessible to the Yemeni people.
Respectfully,
E. Markham Bench
Executive Director
World Press Freedom Committee
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