Yemen’s peculiar priorities

Yesterday afternoon, Cathouse Chat put out a blogging call to support freedom of the press in Yemen.  To the untrained or unknowing eye, this would be merely one more in a flood of noble yet parochial concerns that wash over the blogosphere.  Then again, I wouldn’t be commenting on it if that were the case!

See, when I hear someone complain about a nation that enjoys jailing and torturing journalists, I start looking for a record of anti-Americanism or equivocation in dealing with America’s enemies.  Sure enough, I found it in Yemen.

For example, this is how Yemeni authorities treated the plotters of the U.S.S. Cole bombing, compared to what they did to journalist Abdulkarim al-Khaiwani, as described by the Kat.  This from the Washington Post (emphasis added):

Almost eight years after al-Qaeda nearly sank the USS Cole with an explosives-stuffed motorboat, killing 17 sailors, all the defendants convicted in the attack have escaped from prison or been freed by Yemeni officials.

Jamal al-Badawi, a Yemeni who helped organize the plot to bomb the Cole as it refueled in this Yemeni port on Oct. 12, 2000, has broken out of prison twice. He was recaptured both times, but then secretly released by the government last fall.  Yemeni authorities jailed him again after receiving complaints from Washington. But U.S. officials have so little faith that he’s still in his cell that they have demanded the right to perform random inspections.

 . . .

Since then, Yemen has refused to extradite Badawi and an accomplice to the United States, where they have been indicted on murder charges. Other Cole conspirators have been freed after short prison terms. At least two went on to commit suicide attacks in Iraq.

“After we worked day and night to bring justice to the victims and prove that these Qaeda operatives were responsible, we’re back to square one,” said Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent and a lead investigator into the bombing. “Do they have laws over there or not? It’s really frustrating what’s happening.”

If that’s not enough to get you angry, take a look at this (same link, emphasis added):

Hamoud al-Hitar, a former Supreme Court justice, said the trials were fair. But he suggested that the government had turned lenient because the Cole defendants had participated in a “dialogue and reconciliation program” designed to de-radicalize al-Qaeda members.

Hitar, who oversees the program, claimed that 98 percent of graduates have remained nonviolent. Asked about two Cole suspects who escaped and went to Iraq to become suicide bombers, Hitar shrugged. “Iraq was not part of the dialogue program,” he said.

Get that?  Help blow up an American naval vessel, and you get a “dialogue.”  Try to expose corruption or repression, and its beatings for you and your six-year-old daughter.

Then there’s the ringleader of the upstate New York al-Qaeda cell known as the “Lackawanna Six” (National Review Online - The Corner, emphasis added):

In addition to Jamal Badawi, mastermind of the October 2000 U.S.S. Cole attack, it appears that among the escapees from the recent jail-break in Yemen is Jaber Elbaneh, who was a ringleader of the upstate New York Qaeda sleeper cell known as the “Lackawanna Six.” The “six” refers to the men who pled guilty to terrorism charges in 2003 — it does not include Elbaneh.

As this AP report details, Elbaneh is believed to have voluntarily surrendered to Yemen (surprise!), which of course declined to extradite him to the U.S. for prosecution.

Perhaps they’ll give us al-Khaiwani if we ask for him.

I’d be remiss not to mention the Scud missiles they bought from North Korea in 2002, giving Kim Jong-il the hard currency he desperately needed to stay in power.

In short, we’re looking at just the sort of questionable ties and outrageous behavior one could expect from an Arabian tyranny.

So, will this petition calling for freedom of the press help?  Not directly, and not at first, but it will put the Yemeni authorities on notice that someone is watching them, and more importantly, it will show the Yemeni people that there are Americans (and others from the rest of the world) who know they are suffering.  It was just that sort of message on which the peoples of Eastern Europe relied for the courage to resist their Communist oppressors - and remove one of the greatest threats to the democratic world in the process.

So, if you have a moment, kindly sign.