Press freedom continues to deteriorate in Yemen with the sentencing of Yemeni journalist Anis Mansour to 14 months in prison for “separatism and attacking national unity,” according to the Yemen Times newspaper on Sunday, and the opening of a Press and Publications Court to rule on press offences. Mansour, a journalist for the now suspended Aden-based daily Al-Ayyam and other news websites, was sentenced on 15 July by a lower court in Al-Qabita.

Journalists from independent media have in recent months faced threats, beatings, kidnappings, arrest, detention, closures of their news outlets, and now a slew of legal cases from government forces.

The authorities’ crackdown on the media has coincided with renewed civil unrest in Yemen’s restive south, which was an independent country until unification with North Yemen in 1990.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh took power in the former North Yemen in 1978 and has been president since unification with the south in 1990. He won another seven-year term in a 2006 election.

Citizens in the South have been demonstrating against perceived systematic discrimination and poor living standards. There have been calls by some opposition politicians for total secession, amid violent clashes between protesters and security forces.

IPI is concerned that the sentence imposed on Mansour is but another indicator of Yemen’s slide down the slope of press freedom.

“IPI calls on the Yemeni courts to reverse this decision immediately.  Mansour’s imprisonment is yet another example of the Yemeni government using national security legislation to clamp down on reporters who are simply fulfilling their duty in the public interest,” said IPI Director David Dadge.

“No journalist should ever be tried in a criminal court for simply practicing his or her profession! Furthermore, the idea that a journalist could face criminal sanctions in Yemen for allegedly inciting violence and secessionism only confirms the view that the present Yemeni government falsely equates legitimate criticism with acts against the state. Such a view is wholly incompatible with modern-day democratic societies and is another sign of the repressive climate that journalists must suffer in the country.”

In May, the government banned several publications, including the widely-read Al-Ayyam newspaper, and blocked numerous websites, for allegedly inciting violence and secessionism.

Last week, a Yemen parliamentarian called for the closure of Al-Jazeera’s local office, accusing the network of “hostility to the union.” The Qatar-based news broadcaster’s reporters received threatening text messages from an anonymous sender in April, warning them to stop covering events in south Yemen. In late May the channel’s bureau chief was barred from covering demonstrations in Aden and was put under surveillance.

“The President promised there would be no arrests of journalists,” Yemen Times editor Nadia al-Saqqaf told IPI. “But it seems like there’s a huge disconnect between promises and what’s happening in real life.”

Al-Saqqaf noted that 2009 had been a very bad year for the press in Yemen. “In 2008 we had crossed a lot of barriers but 2009 has set us back at least five years, not just this sentence, but everything that has happened this year.”

In the same week as the sentencing of Mansour Yemen’s Press and Publications Court – established by the authorities in May to rule on press offences – heard the first of the nearly 150 cases already in its docket, local media reported.

On Saturday, the court barred American resident Munir al-Maweri from reporting for Yemen-based news outlets until an outstanding lawsuit against him, in which he is accused of offending the president, is resolved, local news sources reported.