( أصداء و متابعات إخبارية): القضية الجنوبية في الصحافة العالمية

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One Yemeni paper facing government wrath

Al-Ayyam finds itself in hot water in troubled Yemen but the 50-year-old paper is no stranger to pressure.

By Christian Chaise - ADEN, Yemen
Published 2009-06-05

High calibre bullets have peppered the place -- a wall in the children's room on the first floor, in shattered windows and on the facade of the building.
The compound in downtown Aden housing the office of Al-Ayyam, the biggest daily newspaper in southern Yemen, was the scene of a deadly shootout on May 13 between security forces and armed guards.
One man was killed and three were wounded in the hour-long battle.
Police and soldiers had arrived to arrest Al-Ayyam owner Hisham Basharaheel, 66, in connection with a killing more than a year ago in Sanaa, the capital, 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of Aden.
But Basharaheel and those close to him say the arrest warrant was a direct result of the secessionist unrest that erupted in southern Yemen in late April that has claimed 16 lives.
South Yemen, then run by a socialist government allied to the former Soviet Union, was an independent state until unification with the north on May 22, 1990.
Al-Ayyam is one of eight publications that were forced by the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh to cease publication early last month for allegedly working against Yemeni unity.
The violence broke out in Radfan district in Lahaj province north of Aden. Eight people, including four soldiers, were killed between April 27 and May 3 in clashes between protesters and security forces.
For several days in a row, pictures of the dead and wounded featured on Al-Ayyam's front page.
"When Al-Ayyam stopped publishing we were printing 78,000 copies a day," a huge number for Yemen, "and we were selling 100 percent," said Basharaheel Basharaheel, one of the owner's three sons, who heads the foreign desk.
He said average daily circulation was normally around 50,000, although it has not been possible to verify these figures independently.
After a spate of incidents early last month, when delivery trucks were stopped by armed civilians or security forces and thousands of copies seized and destroyed, Al-Ayyam decided to suspend publication on May 5 as it could no longer distribute, he says.
On May 6, the paper's Internet site was blocked, and the next day the government announced the publishing ban on Al-Ayyam and seven weeklies.
For Al-Ayyam the situation was about to get even worse.
A prosecutor issued an arrest warrant against Hisham Basharaheel in connection with a shooting on February 12, 2008 in Sanaa between armed men and a security guard at the newspaper's office there.
One person was killed and the guard was arrested. Basharaheel stood accused of encouraging the guard to open fire.
Basharaheel's son said his father was prepared to appear in an Aden court to answer the charge, but not in Sanaa where he would fear for his life.
The authorities and Al-Ayyam offer conflicting versions of what happened next -- the gun battle at the newspaper's Aden compound.
Police said Al-Ayyam guards opened fire first, but Basharaheel Basharaheel is adamant to the contrary.
"They (the security forces) just opened fire all of a sudden," he said. The security guards "fired back. That's their job."
The building is also home to the Basharaheel family.
"There were twenty women and children in the compound at the time," the younger Basharaheel said. His wife and two children, aged five years and just six months, were among them.
"By a miracle, my wife and two kids had left the room a few seconds before," he said, pointing to bullet holes in the wall just above a child's bed.
Hundreds of Al-Ayyam supporters rushed to the scene after the shooting, and they now take turns to keep vigil outside the building which has become a fortress.
"Basically, we're trapped," the young Basharaheel said.
The security forces may have pulled back, but they are still doing their utmost to keep the family isolated.
They tried to prevent an AFP reporter from visiting Al-Ayyam, and also forced an AFP photographer to delete pictures he had taken.
It is not the first time Al-Ayyam has found itself in hot water. Established in 1958, the paper was suspended for 23 years between 1967 and 1990, during socialist rule in the south. "They told us 'You should suspend the publication for one week pending licensing procedures'," the younger Basharaheel recalled with a smile. "The licence came 23 years later..."

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