Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemned Yemen’s attempt to use the current anti-terror  climate to subject journalists to censorship and banning publications, the Yemen Times has learned.

“Ali Abdallah Saleh’s government is taking advantage of support from foreign powers in the fight against terrorism on its soil to deliberately violate people’s rights”, said the organization.

“The international community must remind the Sana’a government that the legitimate fight against terrorism can never be used to justify cracking down on the media”, it said.

The condemnation came while Yemeni police  Wednesday arrested  on Wednesday the owner and editor of the banned daily newspaper, Al-Ayyam, following clashes between police and armed people who staged sit in outside the newspaper’s office. They called for the newspaper to reopen, which has been banned  by the Yemeni authorities since May.

Hisham Bashraheel, 66, was taken into custody over clashes since Monday in which a policeman and a newspaper ‘s guard were killed and seven people were wounded.

The Police attempted to storm the offices of Al-Ayyam daily  on Tuesday  to arrest guards who had killed a policeman and wounded another on Monday when security forces were trying to disperse a demonstration protesting the continued ban of the newspaper.

According to Gen.Saleh Zuari, the Deputy Interior minister, armed members of Al-Qaeda-linked southern movement exchanged fire with police on Monday, killing the policemen. Zuari added that 40 members of the movement armed with  Kalashnikov rifles and inguinal LG were hold up at newspaper, owned by Hisham Bashrahil.  Rioters attacked the security personnel from the headquarters of the news paper. “That is a blatant criminal act” described Zuari

However the Editor Bashrahil  has described  the scene – before his arrest- to Reporters Without Borders: “The security forces started firing on the crowd at 16.07pm. The police even aimed at one of their own number to make it look like the demonstrators were armed, when in fact everyone came to protest peacefully”.

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