Barack Obama Wants A Yemeni Journalist To Stay Imprisoned For Embarrassing The US Government

A fairly short article I found on digg.

[O]n December 17, 2009, President Obama ordered an air attack — using Tomahawk cruise missiles and cluster bombs — on the village of al Majala in Yemen’s southern Abyan province; the strike ended the lives of 14 women and 21 children. At the time, the Yemeni government outright lied about the attack, falsely claiming that it was Yemen’s air force which was responsible.

Shaye was the first journalist to go to the site of the attack. According to Scahill, it was Shaye who took photographs proving that it was the United States, not Yemen that conducted the assault. And it was Shaye's work that proved that it wasn't "34 militants" who were killed, as the New York Times reported, but women and children.

Shaye was harassed by Yemeni Intelligence the next year and eventually arrested in a raid.

Lots of prominent tribal leaders in Yemen have pressured the government for his release. But Obama personally put a stop to that, according to Scahill.

Word of the impending pardon leaked in the Yemeni press. “That same day,” Barman says, “the president [Saleh] received a phone call from Obama expressing US concerns over the release of Abdulelah Haider.” Saleh rescinded the pardon.

Read more: www.businessinsider.com...

Link to article

And people wonder why there aren't many independent journalists out there. If they aren't gunned down by apaches, they're imprisoned for showing "anti-western propaganda" and most likely working for the enemy.

Originally posted by theshepherd2
A fairly short article I found on digg.

[O]n December 17, 2009, President Obama ordered an air attack — using Tomahawk cruise missiles and cluster bombs — on the village of al Majala in Yemen’s southern Abyan province; the strike ended the lives of 14 women and 21 children. At the time, the Yemeni government outright lied about the attack, falsely claiming that it was Yemen’s air force which was responsible.

Shaye was the first journalist to go to the site of the attack. According to Scahill, it was Shaye who took photographs proving that it was the United States, not Yemen that conducted the assault. And it was Shaye's work that proved that it wasn't "34 militants" who were killed, as the New York Times reported, but women and children.

Shaye was harassed by Yemeni Intelligence the next year and eventually arrested in a raid.

Lots of prominent tribal leaders in Yemen have pressured the government for his release. But Obama personally put a stop to that, according to Scahill.

Word of the impending pardon leaked in the Yemeni press. “That same day,” Barman says, “the president [Saleh] received a phone call from Obama expressing US concerns over the release of Abdulelah Haider.” Saleh rescinded the pardon.

Read more: www.businessinsider.com...

Link to article

And people wonder why there aren't many independent journalists out there. If they aren't gunned down by apaches, they're imprisoned for showing "anti-western propaganda" and most likely working for the enemy.

edit on 15-3-2012 by theshepherd2 because: (no reason given)

Thank goodness soneone is alert. But now the story is getting more to the mainstream, Huff post 15/03/12,

www.huffingtonpost.com...

The story is on air, in depth right now at The Edge TV, the story from Democracy now.org,

www.democracynow.org...