Yemeni court prevents journalist from writing for life

Judicial sources in Sanaa said that a Yemeni court banned a Yemeni journalist from writing for life after being convicted of writing an article that harmed Yemen's relations with Saudi Arabia.

The court also fined journalist Gamal Amer $31 and closed the opposition Naseri party newspaper El-Wahdawi, in which he writes, for one month.

Amer, who did not attend the session, depicted the verdict as strange, saying that he does not intend to stop writing and that he asked his lawyer to appeal.

Amer's trial started in October 1999 after he wrote an article, which the officials considered insulting to Saudi Arabia and harmful to Yemen's interests.

Abd El-Aziz El-Mansoub, the paper's editor-in-chief, is also on trial for publishing the article, which the prosecution said "does not go with the journalist's duty to refrain from publishing unreliable information."