Yemen Monitor / Sana’a / Exclusive:
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) demanded the armed Houthi group to immediately release the independent Yemeni journalist Majed Zayed, who was abducted in the capital Sana’a on September 23rd of this month, during a wide-ranging arrest campaign launched by the group ahead of the anniversary of the glorious September 26 Revolution.
The CPJ reported that journalist Zayed, a writer who contributes to a number of independent Yemeni media outlets such as “Yemen Window,” “Al-Mawqea Post,” and “Mada Press,” was kidnapped on Tuesday evening while leaving a medical center in Sana’a. His fate remains unknown at this moment.
The abduction occurred just two days after Zayed published a national song glorifying the Yemeni flag, ahead of the celebration of the 1962 September 26 Revolution anniversary—a day that Houthi authorities refuse to recognize as a national day of celebration.
Commenting on the incident, Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator, strongly condemned Zayed’s abduction, asserting that this step “is the latest example of the Houthi group exploiting occasions to intensify its repressive campaign against press freedom.”
The Committee called on the Houthis to immediately disclose his whereabouts, release him, and end their targeting of journalists.
The kidnapping of journalist Majed Zayed comes in the context of a broad crackdown launched by the Houthis to coincide with the approach of the September 26 Revolution anniversary. The group uses these times to tighten its grip on any critical or opposing voices to its authority in areas under its control. At the same time last year, the group launched a wave of arrests targeting activists, aid workers, and journalists, including journalist Mohammed Al-Miyahi, who remains detained to this day.
