LOC18:14
15:14 GMT
PARIS, Aug 20 (KUNA) -- An international press freedom organization called
here Wednesday for the "immediate" release of two fixers in Yemen who were
arrested on last month at a military roadblock with a British freelance
journalist for whom they working but who was deported the same day.
Reporters Without Borders said in a statement that it has written to the
Yemeni Interior Minister Mutahar Rashad Al-Masri calling for the immediate
release of two brothers Ali Nasser Kaid Al-Bokheiti and Mohammed Ahmed Hassan
Al-Bokheiti.
According to the Organization, the two brothers have been held since July
21 at the headquarters of the political security police in Sanaa. They have
not been taken before a judge, they have not been charged and they have not
been allowed to see a lawyer during the month they have been held.
"We wrote to one of your predecessors three years ago about the detention
of two fixers, Munif and Naif Damesh, who were arrested with two foreign
journalists," Reporters Without Borders said in its letter.
The letter added that "The arrests of the Bokheiti brothers are the latest
example of the news blackout that your government is trying to impose on the
fighting in northern Yemen."
It indicated that "Foreign journalists are only allowed to move about the
country with a guide appointed by the information ministry. Those who do not
comply with this requirement are sent home and their Yemeni employees are
summarily jailed."
The British journalist being accompanied by the Bokheiti brothers had
wanted to go to a place visited by tourists 800 km northeast of the capital.
After being arrested at a military roadblock, all three were escorted back to
the capital and taken to the headquarters of the public security department,
where they were interrogated separately. (end)
si.bz.
KUNA 201814 Aug 08NNNN