Okeil : The spread of a culture of impunity reinforces the targeting of journalists

Ali Mohamed: An international code of conduct should be established to protect journalists in conflict zones

Maat Foundation for Peace, Development and Human Rights condemns the terrorist attack that targeted the Yemeni journalist Rasha Al-Harazi, which killed her instantly and her child, and her husband Mahmoud Al-Atmi, who was seriously injured and is being treated in a hospital in Aden Governorate. Yesterday, Tuesday, November 9, 2021, unknown persons planted an explosive device in the car of Al-Harazi and her husband, before it exploded on the Abyan coastline in the Khor Maksar area in Aden governorate.

The Maat Foundation expresses its full solidarity with the victims' families and calls on the local authorities in Aden to open an urgent investigation to find out the circumstances of the terrorist incident. The Foundation also calls on all parties to the conflict in Yemen to provide a safe and favorable environment in which journalists in Yemen can practice their work without fear. As part of the campaign to stop the war in Yemen, the Maat Foundation documented more than 1,039 violations against journalists from the beginning of the conflict until the end of 2020, and these violations varied between 332 cases of arrests of journalists and 220 cases of assault and attempted murder of journalists, in addition to 36 cases of trial against journalists. Journalists in Yemen, 62 raids and confiscations of journalists’ properties, in addition to 81 cases of suspending advertising media and confiscating photographic tools, 44 cases of media workers stopping work, in addition to about 264 cases of blocking and threatening to block websites.

In this context, Ayman Okeil, head of the Maat Foundation, said that the spread of a culture of impunity in areas of armed conflict, especially in Yemen, and specifically in areas under the control of the Houthi militia, enhances the targeting of journalists and media workers, and considered that every incident in which journalists are exposed to violence or Threatening, passing without investigation or bringing the perpetrators to justice increases violations against journalists. Aqeel called on all parties to comply with the principles and provisions of international humanitarian law, and international human rights standards that regulate the work of journalists in areas of armed conflict.

For his part, Ali Muhammad, a researcher at the Maat Foundation, said that the Houthis had threatened, in messages through the “WhatsApp” application, the journalist Mahmoud Al-Atami and his wife to kill the journalist, because of their work and their journalistic coverage. under their control. Muhammad called for the need to develop an international code of conduct to protect journalists in areas of armed conflict and to consider them among the groups protected under international humanitarian law.