Press freedom group calls for release of journalists abducted in Yemen
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Version 0 of 1. Press freedom groups have called for the release of two journalists and their driver who appear to have been abducted in Yemen. Al-Jazeera TV correspondent Hamdi al-Bokari and Al-Masdar newspaper correspondent Abdul Aziz al-Sabri disappeared with their driver, Munair al-Subaie, shortly after having dinner together on Monday in the besieged south-western city of Taiz. Their car was later found abandoned. Al-Sabri was seriously injured in December when hit in the neck and shoulder by shrapnel while covering the fighting in Taiz. But he continued to report for Al-Masdar throughout January. Al-Bokari, in one of his last dispatches before he disappeared, reported on civilians killed by pro-Houthi fighters’ shelling of the city. Al-Jazeera and Al-Masdar did not accuse any specific group of abducting their correspondents, but Al-Jazeera said in a statement to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that the network was in touch with unspecified “related parties” to secure their release. The CPJ pointed out that Yemen is now one of the most dangerous places in the world to work as a journalist. Its Middle East and North Africa programme coordinator, Sherif Mansour, said: “We call on all parties to cease targeting journalists and to free immediately all members of the media that they are holding.” On Sunday, freelance journalist Almigdad Mojalli was killed during Saudi-led coalition airstrikes in Jaref, a Houthi-controlled district in the southern outskirts Yemen’s capital, Sanaa. Saudi-supported fighters loyal to Yemen’s president, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, are battling against Houthi militia, backed by Iran, in a war that has raged for nine months in which some 6,000 people are believed to have been killed. Taiz has been under sieged by Houthis for several weeks. On Thursday, representatives of United Nations visited the city to evaluate the cost of damage. Sources: Reuters via Guardian/CPJ/RSF |