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SANA'A, March 19 (Saba) - Prosecution has launched investigations on the accident of firing protesters outside Sana'a University on Friday.
This event resulted in the death of several protesters and wounding others.
In a statement to Saba, Attorney General Abdullah al-Olofi said that a number of persecution's members have been charged to visit the field hospital and the Science and Technology Hospital to inspect the accident.
Mar 19, 2011
Beirut - The Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah denounced Saturday what it described as 'the ugly massacre' Friday against protesters in Yemen.
'Hezbollah announces its strong condemnation of the barbaric aggression against the citizens who were calling for their legitimate rights,' a statement by the group read.
'This is a massacre to be added to the long list of other massacres committed by the Yemeni regime against their free people,' it added.
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh declared a state of emergency to last 30 days after around 50 protesters were killed on Friday. According to witnesses, the protesters were fired upon by police.
In a related development, some 100 Lebanese gathered Saturday near the Yemeni embassy in Beirut to protest the violence against the protesters in Sana'a.
'We denounce the killing of innocent people just because they were calling for their freedom,' read one banner.
The Yemeni demonstrations, demanding the ouster of Saleh, started on February 11, following popular uprisings against long-time rulers in Tunisia and Egypt.
Source: M&C
By Donna Abu Nasr
Sana'a, Mar 19, 2011- Yemen’s government-run news agency Saba today appointed a new chairman to replace Nasser Taha Mustapha, who resigned after the most severe government crackdown on protesters left 46 people dead.
Saba identified the new chairman as Tarek al-Shami without referring to Mustapha’s resignation.
In a letter to the country’s president, Mustapha said he could no longer perform his duties “especially after yesterday’s violent events in Sana’a,” Kuwait’s official news agency, Kuna, reported today.
Source: Bloomberg
Sana'a, Mar 18, 2011- One journalist was fatally shot and another wounded in Sana's today when Yemeni security forces used live ammunition to disperse demonstrators from a central protest area, killing dozens of people. The death of photographer Jamal al-Sharaabi is the first confirmed media fatality in Yemen since political unrest began in January, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
Al-Sharaabi, a photojournalist for the independent weekly Al-Masdar, was among 44 individuals killed by security forces who opened fire on a demonstration against President Ali Abdullah Saleh's 33-year-long rule, local media and the Yemeni Journalists' Syndicate (YJS) reported. Most of the victims were shot in the head or the neck, according to local media. New accounts described at least some of the gunmen as snipers.
Several hundred more civilians were wounded by security forces' fire at the demonstration site in a square outside the main entrance to Sana'a University, news reports said. Among them was a photojournalist, working for the BBC Arabic service, who was shot in the shoulder, the BBC reported. The photojournalist was not identified by name.
"We extend our condolences to the family and colleagues of Jamal al-Sharaabi, who was killed today as he performed his professional duties," said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, CPJ's Middle East and North Africa program coordinator. "This killing comes on the heels of many weeks of increasingly hostile rhetoric and violent reprisals against independent and critical media."
The Yemeni Journalists' Syndicate has documented more than 50 separate attacks on journalists since political unrest began in January. The attacks include abductions, assaults, confiscation of equipment, and threats of violence against journalists and their families.
Source: Yemen Post
By Fatik Al-Rodaini
Aden, Mar 19, 2011- At least six people were wounded in clashes between anti-government protesters and security forces in Yemen's southern port of Aden.
Witnesses said that security forces in Al-Mola'a district stormed a protest camp where thousands are calling the ouster of Yemen's longtime president. Security forces' attempt to put down growing unrest in the town.
Private sources said that police fired tear gas and live bullets on protesters. No more details were reported.
At least 45 Killed in Deadliest Attack on Peaceful Protesters
(New York)- Mar 18, 2011- The United States should immediately suspend military assistance to Yemen until President Ali Abdullah Saleh ends attacks on largely peaceful anti-government protesters and prosecutes those responsible, Human Rights Watch said today.
In the deadliest attack since daily anti-government protests began in mid-February, unidentified gunmen on March 18, 2011, opened fire from nearby buildings and the ground on largely peaceful demonstrators in Sanaa, the capital, while security forces stood by without intervening, local human rights activists told Human Rights Watch. Doctors said 45 protesters, including one young girl, were shot dead, and more than 350 others were wounded, most from gunshots.
Human Rights Watch was not able to confirm media reports that members of the security forces also fired on protesters. However, gunmen seen firing from buildings, including the al-Mahweet governor's house and a bank, had shooting skills that suggested that they were professional marksmen, the local activists said.
"Time and again, President Saleh promises he will stop attacks on peaceful protesters and yet the number of dead keeps rising," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "The United States should back up its words condemning the carnage with action, and halt military aid to Yemen."
Human Rights Watch has documented numerous attacks on largely peaceful anti-government protesters by the security forces and by armed assailants who have shot, stabbed, or hit protesters with stones and sticks, while security forces stood by.
The United States has provided more than $300 million in military and security aid to Yemen in the past five years. The US should make further military aid contingent on the government ending attacks on protesters and holding accountable officials and others, regardless of position, who are responsible for the unlawful use of force, Human Rights Watch said.
Saleh declared a state of emergency in Yemen a few hours after the shootings, which began around 1:20 p.m., and said a "neutral committee" would investigate deaths during recent protests in Sanaa and elsewhere. He described the March 18 shootings as a clash between citizens and "armed elements" among the anti-government protesters.
However, witnesses and media reports said the protesters were finishing their mid-day prayer when the gunmen in civilian clothing fired at them with assault rifles, including AK-47s, from buildings at the Iranian Hospital Square. The square is a five-minute walk from the gates of Sanaa University, the main protest area. The protest has spread to surrounding streets as the number of demonstrators has grown to tens of thousands on recent Fridays, including on March 18.
About 60 uniformed members of the Central Security specialized police forces "were watching without any reaction," a human rights activist who saw the attack told Human Rights Watch. Gunfire continued for up to an hour, at which point security forces sprayed water cannons both at the buildings from which the gunmen had fired and at the protesters, he said. The witness said he saw about 30 gunmen firing from windows or roofs of buildings and another 5 gunmen on the ground. Other witnesses said they saw gunmen standing among the security forces as they fired at the crowd.
After the gunmen started firing, some protesters threw stones and stormed the buildings from which the gunmen had fired, the human rights activist said.
Doctors at the scene said at least 45 people had been killed and 350 injured. The human rights activist told Human Rights Watch that he counted 30 bodies at a field hospital run by protesters and at another nearby hospital immediately after the shootings. He said one of the dead was a girl about 4 years-old who had been shot in the face. Doctors said most of the dead had been shot in the head or chest and that most of the injuries were from bullet wounds. Others were injured by stones, or by teargas fired by security forces, the doctors said.
Saleh should ensure that the state of emergency he declared March 18 is justified and temporary and that any suspensions of civil liberties are strictly limited to the minimum necessary to ensure public order, Human Rights Watch said.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Yemen ratified in 1987, permits some restrictions on certain rights during an officially proclaimed public emergency that "threatens the life of the nation." According to the Human Rights Committee, the international body of experts that monitors compliance with the treaty, any derogation of rights during a public emergency must be of an exceptional and temporary nature, and must be "limited to the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation."
Certain fundamental rights - such as the right to life, and the right to be secure from torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment - must always be respected, even during a public emergency.
"President Saleh should not use a state of emergency as an excuse to stop peaceful assembly," Whitson said. "He should be directing the authorities to look for gunmen to prosecute, not for more protesters to shoot."
Source: Human Rights Watch
