Judicial Ruling on Slandering Case against Hafez Al-Bukari and Rahma Hugaira
Four years after filing three lawsuits against Al-Bilad Newspaper in its first issue published on May 24, 2005 over insulting and slandering issues, we have been surprised at the ruling delivered by Judge Hani Al-Rabi’e on February 15 which denies any slandering and insulting crimes targeting us and considers the Editor-in-Chief Abdul Malik Al-Faishani and writer Ishaq Al-Baseer to be innocent.
The way in which the court dealt with the case and the ruling itself further imply the incessant targeting and clearly discloses the way in which the Yemeni judiciary is administered. This makes us feel that one who adopted the slandering crime is the one who administers the judicial dealing over the last three years.
It is a policy which Yemeni authorities have used to follow when targeting or attacking journalists and human rights activities as they prevent any ruling against those who are behind the slandering issues. Further they instigate such physical attacks against journalists, giving no attention to its moral and official duties towards society and state building. This has led the country into unprecedented political, economic and social deterioration and brought Yemen into a failure state and made occupy the last places as for transparency and good governance standards.
The prosecution referred the case to the respective court in 2005 in response to angry response by the Yemeni public opinion in its different spheres as well as the stances of the international organizations and demonstrations, sit-ins and press releases; however, the court had not resolved the issue only by the mid of this month. We have known about the ruling by chance and from journalists who had been in the court working on other cases.
As journalists, we have been subject to several harassments and constant threats at the personal and professional levels, together with allegations distributed through the government and pro-government media which accuse us of treason and of being agents for foreign parties. These has made our lives, our children’s and our institutions subject to constan
المزيد
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