http://www.democracynow.org/2013/7/25/yemeni_reporter_who_exposed_us_drone http://www.democracynow.org/2013/7/25/yemeni_reporter_who_exposed_us_drone Yemeni Reporter Who Exposed U.S. Drone Strike Freed from Prison After Jailing at Obama's Request http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20z6L1BhcBM Prominent Yemeni journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye has been released from prison after being held for three years on terrorism-related charges at the request of President Obama. Shaye helped expose the U.S. cruise missile attack on the Yemeni village of al-Majalah that killed 41 people, including 14 women and 21 children in December 2009. Then-Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh announced his intention to pardon Shaye in 2011, but apparently changed his mind after a phone call from Obama. In a statement, the White House now says it is "concerned and disappointed" by Shaye's release. "We should let that statement set in: The White House is saying that they are disappointed and concerned that a Yemeni journalist has been released from a Yemeni prison," says Jeremy Scahill, national security correspondent for The Nation, who covers Shaye's case in "Dirty Wars," his new book and film by the same name. "This is a man who was put in prison because he had the audacity to expose a U.S. cruise missile attack that killed three dozen women and children." We're also joined by Rooj Alwazir, a Yemeni-American activist who co-founded the Support Yemen media collective and campaigned for Shaye's release. Transcript This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AMY GOODMAN: A prominent Yemeni journalist who was imprisoned for three years at the apparent request of the Obama administration has been released in the Yemeni capital of Sana'a. Abdulelah Haider Shaye was sentenced in January 2011 to five years in jail on terrorism-related charges, following a trial that was condemned by many human rights and press freedom groups. Shaye's release Tuesday reportedly comes in the form of a presidential pardon that requires him to remain in Sana'a for two years. This could prevent him from traveling to the sites of U.S. drone strikes in Yemen, a topic he has previously reported on. Shaye was first imprisoned in 2010 after he helped expose the United States' role in a 2009 cruise missile attack on the Yemeni village of al-Majalah that killed 41 people, including 14 women and 21 children. The Yemeni government initially took credit for the strike, saying it had targeted an al-Qaeda training camp. But it was later revealed through WikiLeaks cables that it was in fact a U.S. attack. Investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill reports extensively on this attack in his new book and film called Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield. He'll join us in minute. But first, this is Abdulelah Haider Shaye speaking in 2010. He spoke to reporters from inside a caged cell in a Yemeni courtroom at his trial, saying he was arrested because he reported on the murders of children and women. <blockquote>ABDULELAH HAIDER SHAYE: [translated] When they hid murderers of children and women in Abyan, when I revealed the locations and camps of nomads and civilians in Abyan, Shabwa and Arhab, when they were going to be hit by cruise missiles, it was on that day they decided to arrest me. You noticed in the court how they have turned all of my journalistic contributions and quotations to international reporters and channels into accusations. Yemen, this is a place where the young journalist becomes successful, he is considered with suspicion. </blockquote>AMY GOODMAN: Within a month of Abdulelah Haider Shaye's sentencing in 2011, then-Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh announced he was going to pardon the journalist. But Saleh apparently changed his mind after a phone call from President Obama. According to a White House read-out, Obama, quote, "expressed concern" over the release of Shaye. The journalist then remained locked up despite growing calls by human rights groups for his immediate release. Shaye's lawyer, Abdulrahman Barman, described the impact of President Obama's phone call. <blockquote>ABDULRAHMAN BARMAN: [translated] Yes, there was a visit by some social figures and sheikhs to the president, and they negotiated his release and his pardon. We were all waiting in the office for the release memo, which was printed and prepared in a file for the president to sign. And he was to announce the pardon the next day. But the mediators were hasty to announce that pardon. That same day, President Obama called the Yemeni president to express U.S. concerns over the release of Abdulelah Haider. </blockquote>Show Full Transcript › http://www.democracynow.org/2013/7/25/yemeni_reporter_who_exposed_us_drone http://www.democracynow.org/2013/7/25/yemeni_reporter_who_exposed_us_drone
This was a fascinating saga that received pretty much zero coverage in the mainstream media. You would think that Obama himself personally calling up the dictator of Yemen to ensure that a journalist remain imprisoned for the crime of doing his job would make the headlines, but that wasn't the case. The US extrajudical killing program in Yemen isn't weakening the power of AQAP - Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula - it's strengthening AQAP. We should listen to Farea al-Muslimi on how the killing of innocent people by the US is causing AQAP to become more popular than ever among the Yemeni population. Currently we are in fact increasing the number of terrorists, not reducing it the number by subjecting the population of Yemeni to the terror of the drone program. About half of Yemen lives in poverty, on less than $2 a day. The country has been torn apart by civil war and a US-backed dictator for years. It's a breeding ground for terrorism and if we do not reverse our current policy it will only get worse.
Why would Obama let the papers report against him? He owns the MSM, there's no way he'd let them get away with telling a story like that! The reporter brave enough to try writing it would end up in the same prison cell that Yemeni journalist was in.