AL-JAZEERA COMES UNDER ATTACK IN YEMEN

Yemen has become the latest country in the Middle East to crack down on al-Jazeera journalists covering political unrest in the region. On Thursday authorities there withdrew accreditation of all reporters, cameramen and other staffers working for the Arab news network and ordered that their offices in the country be closed. Appearing on the channel, Yemen’s deputy minister of information, Abdu al-Gindi, accused al-Jazeera of becoming “a channel that incites revolutions.” The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said that the latest action against al-Jazeera comes two days after 20 plainclothes gunmen raided the channel’s bureau in Sana and confiscated equipment “while uniformed police stood by and took no action.” On Wednesday an al-Jazeera cameraman was attacked by government supporters as he filmed demonstrators in Ta’iz. He later underwent surgery to repair a broken arm and other injuries. Last Saturday another al-Jazeera cameraman was punched and kicked and his camera and identification papers taken by “plainclothes men,” the CPJ said. The cameraman said that one of his attackers shouted at him: “You and the others at al-Jazeera deserve to be slaughtered.”