MPs back president’s move to suspend constitution, ban street protests and give security agencies greater powers of arrest
Yemeni MPs raise their hands as they vote in favour of a state of emergency declared by the president. Photograph: Mohammad Huwais/AFP/Getty Images
Yemen‘s parliament has approved a sweeping set of emergency laws giving broader powers of arrest and censorship to the president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, despite growing calls from opponents demanding he quit to make way for a military-backed democratic transition.
The emergency law, last evoked during Yemen’s 1994 civil war, suspends the constitution, allows for greater media censorship, bans street protests and gives security agencies arbitrary powers to arrest Read more…
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| Many protesters are angry at widespread corruption in a country where 40 per cent live on $2 a day or less [Reuters] |
Anti-government unrest continued in Yemen on Tuesday with three people reported dead in a prison riot in support of protests and dozens reported injured when police opened fire on crowds in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital.
Policemen and security agents in civilian clothes opened fire as they tried to prevent people from joining thousands of protesters camped out in front of Sanaa University, witnesses told the Reuters news agency. Three of the injured were said to be in a serious condition.
Meanwhile, three prisoners at a Sanaa prison were reported killed and Read more…
Libyan authorities have deployed troops in the second city of Benghazi following night time rallies over the killings of more than 20 protesters.
A major demonstration is taking place in the northern city of Tobruk and in Tripoli three people have reportedly been killed in an attempted jail break, according to security officials.
Libya has issued no casualty or injury figures after two days of protests.
But Human Rights Watch, quoting sources in the country, said at least 24 people have been killed by Libyan security forces who are using live fire.
Libya exerts strict controls on media and communications, making independent verification of claims about the unrest difficult to obtain.
Foreign journalists have been forbidden from entering the country by Colonel Gaddafi who appears to be trying to shut the country off to the outside world.
Libya’s state news agency, JANA, has made no mention of any violence. However, it has reported that “popular rallies” have taken place in “various Libyan cities to express support for the leader”.
Gaddafi’s rule of over 40 years makes him the longest-serving leader of the Arab world and of Read more…
By AHMED AL-HAJ
Associated Press
SANAA, Yemen (AP) – Thousands of people marching for the ouster of Yemen’s U.S.-allied president clashed Tuesday with police and government supporters, and at least three demonstrators were injured in a fifth straight day of Egypt-inspired protests.
Police tried to disperse the demonstrators using tear gas, batons and stun guns, but about 3,000 protesters defiantly continued their march from Sanaa University toward the city center, chanting slogans against President Ali Abdullah Saleh, including “Down with the president’s thugs!”
The procession gained momentum with hundreds of students and rights activists joining along the way.
The unrest comes as ties between the U.S. and Saleh have been Read more…
US focused on non-actual danger in Yemen
Yevgeny Satanovsky, President of the Institute of the Middle East:
The modern idea of US security structures is that it is not Osama bin Laden who is the number one danger but a man from Yemen with his al-Qaeda department. The danger from this man to Saudi Arabia and Bab-el-Mandeb – every ship crossing the Suez Canal sails through Bab-el-Mandeb between Yemen and Somalia – is much bigger than from al-Qaeda groups in Yemen.
The current situation may provide for a division of Yemen into two states – the Shafi south and the Zaidi-style north. Especially now that civil war is about to break out and Saudi Arabian influence in Yemen is minimal.
Al-Qaeda in Yemen is no more than an instrument which President Saleh uses to persuade the US administration that he is their strategic partner in need of financial and military support, especially amid present-day conditions.
In this situation, the US came to realize that old plans, which are absolutely irrelevant today, were focused on a non-actual danger. This means that America will lose here as well, just as it happened in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Yemeni protesters shout slogans during their "day of rage" rally against President Ali Abdullah Saleh. (Gamal Noman, AFP/Getty Images / February 3, 2011)
Large competing rallies for and against the longtime leader of Yemen unfolded Thursday without incident in one of the Arab world’s poorest, most volatile and violent nations.
The Arabian Peninsula nation’s opposition, inspired by the revolt in Tunisia and the ongoing uprising against President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, had called for a “day of rage” against the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has held his title since 1978 and has been accused of corruption and mismanagement. Saleh and his supporters sought to upstage the protesters by holding a simultaneous counter-demonstration across town.
The two rallies drew tens of thousands of people and, unlike in Egypt or Tunisia, unfolded largely peacefully with no major arrests or clashes, according to a Yemeni official. The day’s relative calm suggested that the political passions unleashed by the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia will play out in different countries in different ways
In the North African nation of Read more…
SANAA, Yemen – Tens of thousands of people are calling for the Yemeni president’s ouster in protests across the capital inspired by the popular revolt in Tunisia.
The demonstrations led by opposition members and youth activists are a significant expansion of the unrest sparked by the Tunisian uprising, which also inspired Egypt’s largest protests in a generation. They pose a new threat to the stability of the Arab world’s most impoverished nation, which has become the focus of increased Western concern about a resurgent al-Qaida branch, a northern rebellion and a secessionist movement in the south.
Crowds in four parts of Sanaa have shut down streets and are chanting calls for an end to the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been in power for nearly 32 years.
“We will not accept anything less than the president leaving,” said independent parliamentarian Ahmed Hashid.
Opposition leaders called for more demonstrations on Friday.
“We’ll only be happy when we hear the words ‘I understand you’ from the president,” Hashid said, invoking a statement issued by Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali before he fled the country. Read more…
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