The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has joined its affiliate, the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate (YJS), in urging the release of journalist and union activist Awad Kashmeem, who was arrested by local authorities on 21 February in Mokalla, Hadramout Province in Yemen.

The journalist’s relatives Mohammed Al Absi have received threats demanding to bury their suspectedly assassinated member’s body and close the investigation file regarding the circumstances of his death, according to Almasdaronline.

Militiamen of Houthis and ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh on Sunday stormed Al Jazeera’s closed bureau in Yemen’s rebel-held capital, Sana’a, for the second time since the Iran-backed Houthi militia and forces loyal to Saleh broke into it in March 2015 following the takeover of the legitimate authority. 

Yemeni Journalists Syndicate(YJS) said it had received a press release from the journalist Khaled Dlaq stating that he was intercepted by two gunmen aboard a taxi in Yemen’s rebel-held capital Sanaa on 12 December in attempt to kidnap him but he was able to elude them.

The crimes of kidnapping, arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance have increased significantly since the Iranian-backed Houthi militia and forces loyal to ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh carried out a coup d’état against Yemen’s legitimate authority and took over the capital Sana’a in September 2014, according to a recent study Women Journalists Without Chains (WJWC).

A recent study by Women Journalists Without Chains (WJWC) has revealed that official and non-official media outlets in Yemen have become platforms for triggering waves of hostility and sectarianism and other fronts of conflict in which each party scores his field victories at the expense of issues of people.

Prominent Yemeni journalist Yahya Abdulraqeeb al-Jubeihi, jailed and sentenced to death last year by Houthi authorities, was released and pardoned on Sunday, 24 September.

The Yemeni Journalists Syndicate said that it had received information from fellow journalists saying that the journalist Abed al-Mahthari, the editor of the Al-Diyar weekly newspaper, had been kidnapped by the Houthis-Saleh militants in Sanaa.

Journalist Yahya Abdulraqeeb al-Jubeihi is suffering from serious health problems after being denied access to proper medical care in prison.