Journalists 'must not be spied upon'

Sanaa: Parliamentarians, lawyers and politicians in Yemen have called for legal action to be taken against people who tap journalists' phones in an effort to silence and intimidate them.

The participants of a gathering on Saturday afternoon condemned such eavesdropping as an invasion of privacy and a flagrant violation of the constitution and laws.

The call came after the Al Jazeera reporter in Yemen, Ahmad Al Shalafy, said somebody had sent a recording of conversations between himself and his wife via e-mail to Al Jazeera's headquarters in Qatar and to some other journalists in Yemen.

"We announce our solidarity with journalists and we will summon the concerned ministers and ask them to reveal the truth," said Member of Parliament Abdul Razak Al Hajri who attended the meeting which was called for by Al Jazeera's office in Sanaa.

"I'm sure what happened will turn journalists away from their wonderful attitude in defending rights and liberties. What happened has indicated the moral bankruptcy of the eavesdroppers," Al Hajri said.

Chairman of the Yemeni National Organisation for Defending Rights and Liberties (HOOD) Mohammad Naji Allaw said his organisation was filing a lawsuit against those responsible for the eavesdropping.

"The judiciary must take a severe position on such dishonourable conduct," said Allaw, who is also a lawyer.

Politicians say eavesdroppers try to silence journalists by such action.

"What happened was aimed at silencing journalists, but journalists must continue their mission professionally and not be intimidated," said Mohammad Al Sabri, chairman of the political circle of the Unionist Nasserite.

"Eavesdropping is not new, it has been always there, what is new now is that eavesdroppers have started to publish what they have heard. MPs have to ask the government about its security plan prepared to intimidate journalists and the opposition," Al Sarari said

Director of the Sanaa-based Al Jazeera Office, Murad Hashem confirmed that he had officially addressed letters to government bodies concerned to investigate what had happened to his colleague Al Shalafy.

The Al Jazeera office issued a statement in which it condemned what had happened, calling on the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Communication to investigate and hold accountable those behind the incident.

A Yemeni civil society organisation considered 2005 the worst year for journalists in Yemen. The organisation, Female Journalists without Constraints, recorded 50 assaults on journalists last year.

"Newspapers were closed down, others occupied ... many journalists were kidnapped, beaten, imprisoned and threatened, amid official silence," said the annual report of the organisation.

The writer is a journalist based in Sanaa