Yemen’s Houthi rebels must release all detained and abducted journalists without any conditions, government officials said on Tuesday.
Dozens of journalists have been held in Houthi prisons since the conflict kicked off in 2014, but only a few have been released under a UN-led prisoner exchange operation.
“We call on the international community and organisations concerned with protecting journalists to review the tragic conditions experienced by journalists in areas controlled by Houthi militia and condemn the crimes and violations against them,” Yemen’s information minister, Muammar Al Eryani said.
His comments coincide with the international day to end impunity for crimes against journalists.
“We remember with deep pain our fellow journalists in Houthis prisons, who face execution orders for their political opinions,” Mr Al Eryani said.
The crimes against journalists reveal the rebels' “ugly side”, he said.
The Iran-backed Houthis have been accused of killing, abducting, arresting, torturing and forcibly disappearing reporters in areas under their control.
Yemen is ranked 167 out of 180 countries in Reporter’s Without Borders 2020 World Press Freedom Index.
The country's deputy human rights minister, Majed Fadail told The National that the rebels have committed more than 2000 violations against journalists and media institutions.
“Their actions resulted in the killing of 44 journalists and media professionals and the arrest of dozens who remain under their control since the war started,” Mr Fadail said.
The rebels committed “psychological and physical torture against them and sentenced four to death,” he said.
The reporters were sentenced on charges of espionage in April but their conviction is the subject of an appeal.
Abdel Khaleq Omran, Tawfiq Al Mansouri, Harith Hamid and Akram Al Walidi who were sentenced to death by the Houthi courts are still in prison and were not part of the prisoner swap operation that took place last month.
“These crimes against journalists will not go unpunished,” he said, adding that justice will be served.
Mr Fadail said the government has been forced to call on the international community to condemn the crimes and violations against the reporters.
“Yemen has never seen these actions before, we want the Houthis to feel the pressure to release the remaining kidnapped journalists without restriction or condition,” he said.
Yemen’s warring sides released hundreds of prisoners last month in the biggest exchange operation since the war started.
Nearly 680 Houthi rebels and 400 pro-government fighters were flown between the capital Sanaa and the government-controlled city of Aden.
Mr Fadail, who is also a member of the government prisoner exchange committee, said they are in process of planning the next round of talks which will take place by end of this year.
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
Results
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2.0
Director: S Shankar
Producer: Lyca Productions; presented by Dharma Films
Cast: Rajnikanth, Akshay Kumar, Amy Jackson, Sudhanshu Pandey
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
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Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
The Voice of Hind Rajab
Starring: Saja Kilani, Clara Khoury, Motaz Malhees
Director: Kaouther Ben Hania
Rating: 4/5
