September Net

Houthi militia has committed 15 violations against media freedoms in Yemen during last March and April 2019, according to Media Freedom Observatory(MFO).

The report said that Houthi militia’s violations included 12 cases of assaults, a single threat, a single arrest and an attempt to break into a journalist’s house.

Since early 2015, violations and arbitrary practices against journalists have intensified. The MFO has recorded 2,041 cases of abuse against journalists and media institutions, including 43 cases of murder of journalists and media activists.

Several journalists were kidnapped and subjected to all types of brutal and inhumanely torture, according to the report.

The report mentioned that since the Houthi militia’s coup, more than 400 journalists have been displaced and sought safer havens both inside Yemen and abroad.

MFO renews its call for paying salaries of journalists and staff of media institutions, who experience difficult living conditions because of the salary crisis which started in late 2016, when the Houthi militia ceased to pay salaries to all civil servants on the pretext of financial deficit.

It also demanded international community to protect journalists from the repeated attacks, pointing out that global silence and unpunished criminals have encouraged perpetrators to increase their brutality against journalists.

According to the report, in last April, ten Yemeni journalists held in the Houthi militia’s political prison were beaten and tortured individually and collectively.

They were also denied visits by relatives and ultimately placed in solitary confinement.