French journalist reveals his arrest reason in Socotra
SOCOTRA, June 06 (YPA) – The French journalist, Quentin Miler, revealed on Monday what he was exposed to inside a prison belonging to the UAE-backed factions in the Yemeni archipelago of Socotra at the end of last May.
“I was subjected to ill-treatment during the interrogation in prison,” he said.”The interrogators informed me that my interrogation was at the request of a Gulf state, “without mentioning its name.”
The interrogation came after he published a press investigation on the pollution of the toxic waste of the “French Total Company” of groundwater in Shabwa province last April, he explained.
Miler confirmed on “Twitter” that he was arrested with his colleague, Sylv Mercadier, by armed elements in Socotra, who subjected them to interrogation for 4 days after their personal property and passports were confiscated.
He indicated that his interrogation for several hours was related to his articles about the Gulf intervention in Yemen and the brutality of its agents, indicating that they had translated his previous articles into Arabic amid pressure to obtain the names of his sources, places of meetings, “conspiracies”, networks of political opponents, and access to the contents of their personal devices, “laptops and cameras.”
Miler stated that the investigators told him that his picture was circulated on chat groups of people working in the field of security between Yemen and those Gulf countries, accusing non-Yemeni officials in high positions of demanding his arrest, because his reports that would not gain the approval of the Gulf states.
He stated that He stated that the interrogators accused him of having another country stand by him to write in return for paying him money, and they deluded him that his sources had been arrested and interrogated.
Miler pointed out that he was released along with his colleague Mercadier by signing written confessions to writing political and sensitive articles that endanger Socotra’s stability.
The French journalist went on to say, “After that, we had to leave the island and abandon his plans,” describing what happened to him as an unpleasant event, but it may happen in the life of every journalist.”
The journalist concluded his tweets by saying, “I was very sad yesterday to leave Socotra. Dying in the spirit, I had strong personal moments there, a short story, people I related to, such a special landscape, and a rich history, I will probably never go back.”
The arrest of the French journalist Miler came against the backdrop of an investigation he published in the French magazine “Lopes” about the catastrophe of “Total firm’s remnants and its burial of toxic materials in large lands in Shabwa, which have affected the environment and groundwater used by citizens for drinking.
AA