Jalal Al-Sharaabi
Yemen Times
The conference on Press Freedom started with a speech on the present and future prospects of the Yemeni Press by Mr. Abdulwahhab Al-Rawhani, Member of Parliament and Chairman of the Information Committee of the Parliament. He emphasized the strong link between Yemeni unity and democracy and Freedom of the Press in Yemen. As he said, "Unity and democracy came to open up new and wide horizons for freedom of expression and press in an unprecedented manner for politicians and media people. Despite the little experience in implementing democracy and freedom of the press, like other countries in the Arab region, Yemen was able to implement radical changes in favor of improving Press Freedom. This was due to the fact that Journalists and Press in general are getting great attention from President Ali Abdullah Saleh. This was evident also because democracy and freedom in all its forms are currently deeply rooted in the Yemeni constitution."Mr. Al-Rawhani indicated that the seminar was a great occasion to expand the journalism-related issues. Well-trained and educated journalists in government offices before unity constituted only 20% of the journalists, while the remaining 80% depended on their experience."On the present situations relating to the Press in Yemen he said that the Ministry of Information's latest figures show that there are currently 225 publications, of which 128 have permissions. There are 26 publications managed by the government while there are 24 publications by public related committees and establishments. On the other hand, there are more than 36 newspapers issued by political parties and party-oriented organizations. Among these newspapers, 3 are daily (governmental), 79 are weekly, 68 monthly, 23 seasonal, and 7 periodical.
Al-Rawhani raised the question regarding how the newspaper-reading population, which is no more than 5% of the whole population, would interact and benefit from this large number of newspapers. He brought about shocking statistics showing that the most prominent newspapers (governmental) are the least to distribute their issues in Aden. The newspaper that had the least circulation in Aden was ironically the official newspaper of the government. It only circulated 200 copies in the whole city. On the other hand,the circulation of Al-Ayyam newspaper for example,exceeded 11,000 copies. The same applies for Arab and foreign newspapers, as they distribute more than 93,000 copies, 84% of them being read by the public.
In his conclusion, he indicated that the average Yemeni reader looks to important news, the news that is interesting, accurate, and unbiased. This, in itself, is not available in very many Yemeni newspapers.
Mr. Al-Rawhani gave an example of the exaggeration and inaccuracy in news items by Yemeni newspapers and expressed his disappointment in the fact that only two newspapers reported the story of Mohamed Adem in an accurate and unexaggerated manner. It was later mentioned by Walid Al-Saqqaf, that Yemen Times was one of them. He repeatedly explained that the Yemeni "Yellow" newspapers are below the international standard in almost all aspects and should try to rise to the expected level of quality of these newspapers.
He concluded his statement by explaining the appropriate measures to be taken to raise the standard of Yemeni newspapers. These measures include benefiting from Arab and regional experiences of other prominent newspapers in the region, emphasizing accuracy which should be prioritized, and imparting appropriate training to raise the professional competence of journalists.
Afterwards, Mr. Walid Abdulaiz Al-Saqqaf, Chief Editor of Yemen Times gave a speech about the challenges facing the private press enterprise. In his speech, he started by responding to Mr. Al-Rawhani by claiming that it is impossible for Yemeni newspapers with their limited financial and human resources to rise to the level of international standards. He explained that this applies to all the institutions in Yemen, including the media consisting of the radio and Television. "We cannot expect a newspaper such as Al-Wahdawi to rise to the level of "Roasalyousif" while Sanaa TV Channel cannot rise to the level of MBC."
Later Mr. Walid continued by listing the obstacles faced by the private press. "First we should always begin with the financial resources. Any newspaper needs financing to continue and continue strongly. Unless it develops its own resources, it cannot continue successfully." He gave Yemen Times as an example of a newspaper that neither depends on foreign nor on local funding. It only depends on its own financial resources through advertisements. YT developed an efficient and strong commercial based self-financing mechanism that enables it to strengthen its capacity building mechanisms and raise its quality every year. According to Mr. Saqqaf, another obstacle is the lack of information, as Yemen is among the countries that is not used to holding press conferences and issuing press releases frequently. Until this very moment, there is yet no mechanism to assign quick coverage to events such as kidnappings, disasters, and other eventualities, while there are always news items about new governmental projects, accomplishments, inaugurations, etc. This is not true journalism. This obviously encourages private newspapers to seek alternative sources of information, which sometimes are inaccurate, resulting in publication of exaggerated information, or even misinformation.
"The lack of appropriate and world standard printing units in Yemen is a further challenge for private newspapers." Said Mr. Saqqaf. " The limited financing of these establishments makes it difficult for them to obtain printing units for their newspapers. Hence, such newspapers have to print their issues in a separate printing house, some of which are owned by the government. This causes delay and degrades overall quality of the newspaper. This is not a challenge that can be overcome by efforts of the newspapers alone, but can be combated by joint efforts by the government by providing loans and facilities for these newspapers to obtain their own printing units, and by increasing the overall quality of service of available printing houses.
Another challenge that Mr. Saqqaf identified was the honesty, integrity, and total independence. It is not easy for a newspaper to be unbiased and independent in all sectors all the time, as there are several factors that push it towards one side or the other. According to press analysts, the most successful newspapers, throughout modern history, were the independent and honest newspapers reporting news without any alteration, making it a continuously trustworthy source of information.
Then he described how Yemen Times is a newspaper that has gone through many difficult times because of its strong and unbiased stand towards national issues. This resulted in the harassment of the newspaper during several stages of its history. Until today, Yemen Times continues to publish accurate and unbiased articles without thinking of the consequence. Hence, it has gained the respect of the readers and has become more popular and trustworthy than any other Yemeni newspaper in English." He added that the most important constraint behind the hesitation of some writers to write bold and courageous articles, even if based on correct information, is the judicial constraints that limit authentic news and views from being published.
In his concluding statement, Chief Editor of YT, Walid Al-Saqqaf expressed the hope in that the last and most important challenge of finding qualified, professional, and skillful employees will be met in future with the help of the Faculty of Information, Sanaa University. He explained that for Yemen Times, finding appropriately trained journalists is even more difficult because it requires proficiency in English . The human resources in this field are extremely inadequate, and need development through various activities. Mr. Saqqaf finally surprised the participants by breaking news of a workshop that YT is planning to organize during the summer in cooperation with JEMSTONE.
The last speaker in the seminar was Mr. Mohamed Yahya Al-Sabri, GM of the Information Committee of Sanaa University. He gave a speech about the factors influencing party-oriented newspapers in Yemen.
Mr. Sabri said, "I believe we cannot understand the problems of the party-oriented press without understanding the concepts of the freedom of press. The freedom of press could only be achieved by presenting the news to the reader in an accurate, independent, and unbiased matter. Unfortunately, we in Yemen, do not have this mentality. Most party-oriented press only present half of the truth, and exaggerates most of the time just to adjust the news items to suit their political party's interest."
Mr. Sabri indicated that the main factors behind the failure of party-oriented newspapers to get the truth of the public is their biased reporting and the inaccurate information provided. He summarized the factors under three headings: judicial factors, administrative and political factors, and party-oriented factors. All these factors, each in its own way, affect the credibility of the news items published, and create less overall trust in readers minds about the true dimensions of the news items.
Regarding the judicial constraints, Mr. Sabri explained that the limits that the journalist or writer should not exceed are not well defined. This is the major reason behind the award of prison sentences to journalists and closure of newspapers. Another factor is the double standard and discriminatory treatment to governmental newspapers that are defaming other newspapers and escaping without punishment, while other papers are prosecuted. This significantly limits the freedom of the writer, especially of party-oriented newspapers.
The political factors are imposed by the involvement of Ministry of Information in the internal affairs of other newspapers, which sometimes results in the closure of these newspapers.
The party-oriented factors are the strongest reason for the distrust of the readers as it forces the writer to write articles in a biased manner usually in the interest of the party ignoring all the others. This causes the readership to decrease or be limited to those having the political affiliation to the party in question.
Mr. Sabri concluded that apart from all these factors, party-oriented newspapers are also affected by the low level of professionalism in their staff in terms of skills of journalism. This results in the downfall in the professional level the party-oriented newspapers causing them to be among the least credible newspapers, not in Yemen alone, but in a global context.

After all the speeches were over, the Dean of the faculty thanked the participants and added that "10 years is not a short period. It may be a short period in a global sense, but for Yemen it is quite a long period in which we have experienced a lot and learned a lot.
We have always dreamed about unity, and now that we are living in its 10th year, we realize the fruits it has given us, among which is the freedom of expression."
Then Dr. Mohamed Abdulgabbar Sallam, a prominent figure in the faculty, and the Chief Editor of the "Kalima" newspaper concluded the proceedings by suggesting about a key reason for the current situation of the press in Yemen. "If we are talking about institutionalized press in Yemen in both its private and party-oriented sectors, there is only one single and sole newspaper in the whole country which is institutionalized, and that is Yemen Times. Unfortunately, the newspapers today are no more than shop-like newspapers that lack the true sense of journalism. Journalism in the sixties and seventies was in its peak and in its most professional excellence, despite the small staff they had. Today, the large number and low quality of services provided shows the true level of journalism in Yemen. It means that journalism in Yemen is truly in an extremely low level."At the end of the seminar, the participants and a number of teachers in the university, including Dr. Sallam0 received honorary certificates for their active role in the event and in various other activities of the faculty.

Talking on democracy in the Arab world sometimes assumes a theoretically complex dimension, making the concept of democracy a bit problematic. The question is how we can guarantee that the government is run under supervision and knowledge of the majority. The PGC has proved that it had won a narrow majority and from the beginning it started looking for alliances and managed to ally itself to Al-Haq party. What we are talking about is a real popular majority. The political problem of Yemen is that the rule was characterized by conflict of elites representing, regional , ethnical or tribal minorities while the popular majority remained marginalized and far away. Since the Immamite rule the right to government was confined to an ethnical minority, and even within that context there was a factional or certain tribal forces that spread their control and thus the rule was rendered into a narrower circle. This conflict remained active even during the post-unification phase. The regional minority groups indulged into strife, conflict and competition over the assumption of power without giving attention or concern for the majority opinion. The sources of power are controlled by a certain tribe, a certain group here or there, still this group continues in its conflict. It makes no difference whether this is in the southern part or in the northern part of the country. What is apparent is that the voice of majority is inaudible in this context. To settle the issue of authority in Yemen, I think one should take the following points into account:
The right of the people's majority. No doubt, the republican system has granted equal opportunity to all, which is a positive sign. But, the major tools of authority still continue to remain in the hands of a limited tribal regional sect. The morals of the ruler are a decisive factor for getting a good governance. Let us take the example of president Clifton's involvement in the sex scandal and how he acted to get out of the accusations. The American example is a significant point to be taken into account when dealing with authority . Wasn't it in the hands of president Clinton to put the investigating officer or who accused him of adultery in jail? If we deeply analyze the issue we can see that he did not have the power to do such a thing in a democratic system. To use the army against the Congress in the context is impossible. Such a sort of thinking is irrational too. It is more important to deal with the issues of wealth, power and authority. Since wealth remains determinant of power in the hands of the authority, it is not possible to tame the authority or subjugate it to law. Then, how are we going to solve this issue? If we take the example of the U.S. we can clearly see the use of tools to subdue to subdue others is not seen in US administration. When I speak about uprightness of power I wager on morals of the ruler and nevertheless it is of no avail to bet on morals of those in power because in its very nature it tempts the ruler to injustice. The sound path is that the authority should not enjoy monopoly of or monopoly of wealth. If we don't settle this issue, then these ideas will remain only slogans and there would be impossible to achieve distribution of power. The only available path for us is therefore to struggle to transform elections to a real mechanism for peaceful transfer of power. Such mechanism will put the authority in the hands of the majority. No region or regions will claim the right to steer the state at the expense of the popular majority. The more important thing is what kind of role the opposition party should practically play? The practical way lies first in embodiment of these meanings within the parties and their organizational conditions. To cooperate and coordinate among themselves, the political parties must not escape from the democratic mechanism, i.e. the electoral mechanism and should struggle for putting this mechanism straight. They should make it a reality and the actual inlet for peaceful transfer of power and not to calculate their immediate gains or losses. Even within the PGC, we expect to find in the long-run that the popular majority would inevitably occupy its position and gradually move into the influential core.
Mohammed Kahtan
Chairman of the Political Department, Islah Party

In his address to the seminar of the Socialist Party on democracy held on June 4, Dr Faris Al-Saqqaf said democracy in Yemen was the product of external changes and alliance of the two ruling parties in 1990. We mean the pluralist democracy that gave way to establishment of political parties. The large-scale of press freedom was one of the aspects the democracy but unfortunately after the war of 1994, the democratic pursuit receded and its phenomena began to occupy narrower areas of application.
The democracy of 1990 was rather confined to the establishment of parties and margin of press freedom, while equal opportunities did not exist owing to the concentration of power, property and media and state institutions in the hands of first the two ruling parties and then the ruling party. Democracy here has not matured to the extent of peaceful transfer of power but the political forces are pinning hope that this matter could be realized by their peaceful struggle.
Rd added that before 1990 we talked about the absence of democracy and now we are speaking of incomplete democracy. This undoubtedly dictates on the opposition to stabilize the democratic culture and include it in educational curriculums in addition to reforming the constitutional and electoral system.
The political democratic attitudes of those who work in politics are moving on two directions. Some see the no avail of the projected democratic action because it establishes formality of democracy and gives legitimacy to a political system not capable of achieving democracy the way it should. The other trend sees it as a prelude to act and struggle within its boundary, though narrow it may be, to enlarge it and to rely on the time factor and change of people's awareness and conduct. We are used to repeatedly talk about a critical vision or criticize the state or the political system while at the same time we care not about the political opposition.
The political opposition itself is suffering from problems. Frankly speaking, we speak out our demands from the political system and rulers, whereas we ourselves, in our parties, are not qualified as an instrument of change and do not possess the democratic specifications. Those who govern the parties are minorities encompassing groups within them. The parties are led by the symbol leader who represents the chief of the party. For more than three decades party leaderships remain the same. They have not been changed and have not conducted the transfer of party power and leadership. How can we demand the political regime or the ruling party of that while we do not practice it inside our organizations? We have to qualify ourselves, as instruments of democracy, for that.
The parties must be social, meaning to be closely connected with the society and its suffering, not only political . There are many issues and problems in our country , such as illiteracy and people's living conditions. These areas are not seen as part of the political parties programs and are not part of their program of demands from the state.The society does not feel that these parties represent it. They are merely, as I earlier remarked, a reaction to the ruling party. They say the ruling party deals blows to democracy and tightens its grip against it, nevertheless when they were invited to a trip abroad, they responded positively. They respond to invitations and dialogues extended by the president but they go as listeners and without carrying a program or definite demands. The political parties are requested to actually revise and reconsider their slogans, political addresses and priorities, beginning from inside first.
Fares Al-Saqqaf, Future Studies Center

Oman: Renewal with Reason
written and illustrated by Dr. Hussein Shehadeh
The most important event in the modern history of the Sultanate of Oman was the take-over of power in a bloodless coup by the then 29 year-old Sultan Qaboos from his father on 23rd July 1970. That night is unforgettable to the Omanis, who danced joyfully in the streets, welcoming an era of vigor and vitality.
Sultan Qaboos bin Said meets you everywhere. His majesty waves and blinks in gold along the six-lane motorway from the airport to the capital, which just 29 years ago was trudged by camels and donkeys. In those days, Oman's 300,000 square kilometers were served by less than 10 kilometers of asphalted roads. Today 5,600 kilometers of asphalt criss-cross the country.
Muscat looks to the sea at the foot of the cliffs reflected in the Gulf. Oman is clad in its best bib and tucker. Oman's renaissance under Sultan Qaboos is celebrated for a whole week every November. On the hillsides, stylish modern houses have opened their jewel cases, gems cascade down the walls. Necklaces of emerald, scarlet and white adorn the skies in the country's national colors.
All that has been achieved since 1970 can be attributed to Sultan Qaboos: the roads, more than a thousand schools and the university with their 500,000 students, all the health centers, hospitals, telecommunications, radio and TV stations, the international hotels, the motorways, domestic flights, oil riches, tourism, social and environmental developments.
"Before 1970 there was one school in Salalah, where I live," says a 35-year-old Omani. " We sat under a tree, just as boys, and read the Koran. Before 1970 we went to the mosque to pray for forgiveness for the ruler we had. Now we go there to invoking blessings for the Sultan's good health and long life, God willing. Now I can send all my kids to schools, the girls included."
When Sultan Qaboos wanted to set about building his nation he opened the doors to all his countrymen in exile, plus thousands of guest workers from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, the Philippines and Africa. Together, Oman's 2.1 million inhabitants, of whom some 400,000 are foreigners, have brought about developments which in many respects are unique.
The Omanis rapidly acclimatized themselves to riches, and development continues unabated. This causes some concern so long as it remains uncertain where the next billions will come from. The oil reserves will last a while into the new millennium but Sultan Qaboos has long been talking of the need to prepare other economic legs to stand on.
The encouragement of private initiative and "Oman-ization" are the slogans these days. Omanis are already gradually taking over the jobs now held by foreigners. However, Western experts are still largely responsible for technical developments, while Indians, Pakistanis, Africans and Philippinos sweep the streets, serve in the hotels and drive the limousines.
Omanis look to their past when they pluck up the courage for a future with no guaranteed oil riches. They have worked hard, and have conquered the world before.
What astonishes first time visitors to Oman even more than the spectacular beaches, alpine mountain valleys, the fjord-like sunken valleys of the Musandam Peninsula jutting into the Gulf, and the forbidding inland deserts of shifting sands, is the care with which the country's natural wonders and man-made conveniences are maintained. Oman's major highways and its side roads have been broadened and well maintained. Its village houses have been modernized within rules which requires owners to maintain the contours and colors of traditional exteriors. And strict laws prohibit littering and regulate food preparation, water purity, and trash disposal to protect Oman's residents and their tourist guests.
For formal occasions Omani men also wear outer robes in a variety of colors and a silver khanjar, a curved ceremonial dagger that is the mark of adulthood for all Omani males.
Unspoiled Oman is a tourist paradise. Oman's leaders want to keep it that way and they will not be "stampeded into permitting a hedonistic Club Med atmosphere, although visitors who want a bottle of wine with their dinner or who enjoy a beer or a cocktail in their rooms or in a bar, will have no trouble in finding any of these things in Oman's first class hotels. The preservation of tradition is not always an easy task when there are so many tempting attractions in the modern world. The Omanis are a rationally minded people, and the fear of eroding deeply rooted traditions and values are, in reality, quite remote. Unlike its neighbors in the Gulf region, Oman is a sea-faring nation that cultivated the land
From the very start the young Sultan tried to keep intact as much of Oman's cultural inheritance as he could. He called upon the men to continue wearing their traditional dishdashas, their long white gowns. In their belts one still sees the symbol of masculinity, the khanjar, a curved Omani dagger in a richly decorated sheath.
Women in Oman now get an education and are actively urged by the Sultan to join the commercial community. Traditions are still honored, and especially in Bedouin camps you will see many women wearing traditional masks, or burqas.
This respect for tradition is paired with a sense of pride about progress. Omanis actually talk of a renaissance, restoration for their country to its former greatness. This enabled Oman to forge a reputation as a trading and seafaring nation at an early stage by virtue of its position between Asia and Africa and the monsoon winds.
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Hussein Shehadah is a Palestinian-born journalist and lecturer specializing in Arab culture and society in the Scandinavian countries. Dr. Shehadah has lived and worked in Denmark for more than 30 years.