Information Minister condemns Houthi militia for extending journalist Nabil Al-Sudawi’s detainment to nine years.

Unprecedented Targeting of Press Freedom

Yemen’s Minister of Information, Culture, and Tourism, Muammar al-Eryani, has vehemently condemned the Iran-backed Houthi militia for intensifying the detention of Nabil al-Sadawi, a journalist for the Yemeni News Agency (Saba), extending his imprisonment from eight to nine years. This decision follows years of enforced disappearance, psychological and physical torture, mistreatment, and isolation from his family since his abduction on September 21, 2015. Al-Eryani’s statements highlight a systematic and unparalleled assault on journalism and media workers by the Houthi forces.

From the inception of their coup, the Houthi militia has seized media institutions across the board—governmental, party-affiliated, and private—confiscating their assets, dismissing employees, and putting journalists’ lives in jeopardy. Al-Eryani pointed out the grave violations against press freedom, including arbitrary arrests, forced disappearances without charges, torture, fabricated death sentences, killings, displacements, property looting, and unjust firings from public service roles.

Censorship and Suppression in Houthi-Controlled Areas

In areas under their control, the Houthi militia enforces strict surveillance on the remaining journalists and social media activists, effectively silencing them and employing severe measures of terror, intimidation, and punishment to prevent them from fulfilling their professional duties and reporting events freely and objectively.

International Call for Action

Al-Eryani has called upon the international community, the United Nations, human rights organizations, and notably the International Federation of Journalists and the Journalists’ Syndicate, to exert pressure on the Houthi militia. He urges immediate action to release all detained journalists, including Waheed al-Soufi, Nabil al-Sadawi, and Abdullah al-Nabhani, and to ensure the protection of media workers in Houthi-dominated regions. Furthermore, he advocates for the classification of the Houthi group as a global terrorist organization, highlighting the critical need for international intervention to safeguard press freedom in Yemen.

This plea underscores the dire situation for journalists in Yemen, where reporting the truth has become a perilous endeavor under Houthi rule. The international community’s response to these violations could be pivotal in restoring freedom of the press and human rights in the war-torn nation.

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