Yemeni Authorities Blocked Mareb Press Website

By Fatik Al-Rodaini

Yemen's most famous news outlet, Mareb Press website was blocked by the Yemeni government for covering the current news of the Yemeni youth revolution, which is demanding the ouster of President Saleh's regime.

Mohamed Al-Salehi, the editor-in-chief of www.MarebPress.net told the Yemen Post that the Yemeni Authorities blocked the website due to its stance with the Yemeni youths in their revolution and the continuous coverage it gave it.'' He added that the website was working four days ago, but was blocked again.

Al-Salehi confirmed that web visitors abroad can visit easily the site easily. He added visitors in Yemen can enter the website, though blocked, through a specific proxy site.

He accused the Yemeni government of standing behind the blacking because the government does not want people to know what is going on inside the country.

As the popular uprising started to escalate in many part of the republic, more websites were blocked in the last few months including www.almasdaronline.com, www.nashwannews.com and www.yemennation.net.

Other websites that have been blocked and hacked include the mouthpiece of the Islah Party, islah.net, amid an intensified war against the electronic media in Yemen coinciding with the peaceful uprising demanding the ouster of the regime across the republic.

Management of www.islah.net said hacking its website was an attempt to prevent it from covering the popular revolution as hundreds of thousands have been conducting protests and sit-ins to call for the resignation of President Saleh.

Yemeni government has been putting more pressure on local media outlets.

An emergency law was called for two weeks ago, while the Ministry of Information threatened all media outlets to be careful when reporting about protests.