Yemen seizes Arab satellite TV gear over southern unrest

[frigidmagi]

Yahoo

Yemeni authorities have seized the transmission gear of Arab satellite news channels over their coverage of deadly unrest in the south of the country.

"The SNG (satellite news gathering) equipment used by the Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya channels without being declared to the information ministry has been seized," the ministry said late on Thursday.

The seizure was "legal," with the Sanaa offices of the two channels given advance warning, it said in a statement carried by the official news agency Saba, and the gear would be returned to their head offices.

Such equipment "should not serve to provoke trouble and amplify events in such a way as to harm public order, as has been the case with Al-Jazeera," a ministry spokesman said.

He said Al-Jazeera had broadcast "archive footage, presenting it as new, which amounts to fraud and an encouragement for elements intent on sabotage and separatism," he charged.

But from its Doha base, the channel did not respond to that allegation. It said the equipment had been seized "by force" and employees attacked at its Sanaa office as part of a campaign of "intimidation" over its Yemen coverage.

Al-Arabiya, meanwhile, insisted the equipment had been taken into Yemen in 2006 with "the green light of the president of the republic."

Mahmud Munassar, its bureau chief in Sanaa, protested over what he called "an arbitrary measure" and said the two channels would now be unable to run any live coverage from Yemen.

The Sanaa government was apparently "trying to cover up its policies in the south," the scene of demonstrations fired up by a separatist movement, the bureau chief said.

On Thursday, three activists were killed and five wounded as protests in southern towns sparked clashes with police, amid sympathy rallies in the north against the crackdown, opposition sources said.

Pro-independence protests have multiplied in the south in the face of Yemen's worsening economic problems.

South Yemen was independent from 1967 until it united with the north in 1990. An attempt to break away again in 1994 sparked a short-lived civil war that ended when the south was overrun by northern troops.

Opposition parties also organised demonstrations in the north on Thursday against what they saw as the government's heavy-handed methods. An estimated 5,000 people took part in a peaceful demonstration in Sanaa.

[General Havoc]

I never thought I'd see the day when I found myself thinking good of Al Jazeera's for their muckraking and stand against press censorship.

We live in strange times.