YEMEN Press Agency

CPJ calls Saudi Arabia to disclose journalist al-Sawari’s whereabouts

NEW YORK, July 16 (YPA) – The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called on Saudi authorities and government of exiled Hadi to disclose the whereabouts of kidnapped journalist Yahya al-Sawari and to release him immediately.

“The journalist Yahya al-Sawari was held without charge at an unknown location,” said Sharif Mansour, coordinator of the Middle East and North Africa program at CPJ, calling on Hadi’s government and Saudi forces to disclose al-Sawari’s whereabouts and release him immediately and unconditionally.

“Yemeni journalists are seriously at risk in Yemen regardless of what they write,” he added in a statement posted on the Committee’s website.

The Committee said that the Interior Ministry of Hadi government and the Saudi Ministry of Defense did not respond to its letters to comment on the incident of kidnapping and imprisonment of al-Sawari.

The Committee reported that its research confirmed that journalists in Yemen had been imprisoned, threatened and detained by all parties to the conflict.

On July 3, al-Sawari, a freelance journalist, was arrested in al-Ghayda, the capital city of Mahar province, by militias affiliated to the governor of Mahra Rajih Bakrit and he was handed over to Saudi forces stationed in al-Ghayda Airport.

Al-Sawari has so far spent thirteen days without knowing his fate.

 

YPA