Sana’a (Tuesday, 27/01/2015):

Freedom Foundation pointed out that Sunday and Monday were the most aggressive in violating the media freedom in the capital Sana’a and gloomiest in dealing with journalists and photographers for various local and international media outlets.

The violations on media freedom included kidnappings, arrests, physical attacks, severe beatings of many media crews and journalists from the local and international media as well as confiscating press and TV photography tools.

The most prominent violation cases on Sunday were the media coverage prevention, murder threat and pointing guns at faces of the crew (Sky News Arabia) TV, the reporter Mohammad Al-Qadhi and the cameraman Sami Al-Ansi in front of Parliament, as well as the Reuters photographer, Mohammed Al-Ssaiaghi was severely beaten with (Ak47) butts and hands, confiscation attempt of cameras and breaking one of the cameras lens.

As well as four local journalists were kidnapped and arrested on Sunday for a time up to 12 hours, who are; the journalist of (Al-Oula Newspaper) Samed Al-Same’i, the journalist of (Yemen Journal) website Yahya Ahmed Al-Qubati, the journalist of (Al-Eshteraki Net) website Arif Hazza Al-Waqidi, and the freelance journalist Haikal Al-Areqi.

The Monday day was the gloomiest in committing violations against media freedom in the capital Sana’a, where 19 varying violation cases were committed including physical attacks, severe beatings, kidnapping, confiscations and crush attempt of photography tools.

The most prominent violation cases, occurred on Monday, were the severe beating of (Suhail TV) crew, who are the correspondentHael Al-Bukali and the two cameramen Maher AL-Hubaishi and Abdullah Al-Rowhani, also were the cameras looting and beating the crew of (Sky News Arabia) TV and taking them by force on a Houthi military car, who are the correspondent Mohammed Al-Qadhi and the cameraman Sami Al-Ansi.

As well as Reuters photographer, Khaled Abdullah Al-Mahdi was subjected to the physical attack and confiscating his camera for some time, as well as the American Al-Hurrah TV cameraman Mohammed Abdullah Eida was subjected to the coverage prevention and confiscating two channel’s TV cameras for several hours, as well as the crews of Al-Arab TV, the journalist Asem Al-Saber and cameraman Mohammed Al-Shamiri, were subjected to the physical attack and confiscating their cameras and cell phones for several hours, as well as (Azaal TV) cameraman Maysor Abdul-Wali Al-Saqqaf was subjected to the coverage prevention and, as well asArab TV network cameraman Ahmed Humran and (Anadolu Agency) photographer Abdullah Humran, were subjected to the filming prevention and confiscating their cameras for nearly an hour, and (France 24) TV cameraman Ghamdan Al-Qudaimi was attacked.

In addition to the beating, coverage prevention and confiscating photography tools for many local journalists, such as the photojournalist Mohammed Al-Emad was subjected to the coverage prevention and deleting his camera photos, as well as (Al-Ahali)newspaper journalist Haitham Al-Shehab was detained for several hours, as well as the two journalists of (Yamnat) websiteGhamdan Al-Same’I and (Al-Yemen Al-Jadeed) website Bakeel Afif, were attacked, as well as the photographer Yahya Al-Swariwas kidnapped for several hours, and the photojournalist Tawfiq Al-Maslami and the head of the Youth Media Center, Adel Shamsan, were also kidnapped.

The first weeks of January experienced 24 violation cases of media freedom perpetrated mostly by Houthi gunmen. The most prominent violation cases were the storm of the major daily state-owned Al-Thawra newspaper, preventing its editing body to exercise their work and changing its leadership by force, as well as the storm of the house of Al-Thawrah newspaper editor-in-chief, Faisal Makram and confiscating its stamp by force, in addition to the kidnapping of Al-Wahdawi newspaper reporter in Ibb province,Mohammed Al-Masoudi and the murder threat of Al-Jazeera Media Network bureau chief in Yemen Saeed Thabet and chasing the journalists working in the network's office in Sana'a.