Yemen
Officials seize broadcasting equipment from news outletsPosted Apr 6 2010
Government officials confiscated broadcasting equipment from the Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya bureaus in Sana’a March 11 after the Yemini Ministry of Information accused the news outlets of exaggerating coverage of protests in the south, according to IPI.
Information Minister Hassan al-Lozy told The Washington Post that the Qatari-owned Al Jazeera and its rival Saudi-owned Al Arabiya did not have a license to use their live broadcasting equipment, but head of media at Al Arabiya Nasser al-Sarami thinks the accusation is connected.
“They did not explain why they are doing this,” al-Sarami tells The Washington Post. “They did mention that we have no license to broadcast from Yemen, but that is not true since we’ve had it since 2002.”
A Yemini government official called head of Al Jazeera’s Sana’a bureau, Murad Hashim, as a warning the morning the Ministry of Information confiscated the equipment. The government thinks the coverage will “harm public order,” but intends to return the equipment, according to a report from Al Arabiya.
The Ministry of Information has threatened to withdraw permits from Al Jazeera journalists and faces pressure from governors in three provinces in southern Yemen to close the bureaus.
Thousands gathered the same day to object arrests in the south as protesters seek to reestablish independence from Yemen as it was before the agreement in 1990.