Yemen Media Sustainability Index (MSI)
November 2, 2011
About the MSI
IREX designed the MSI to measure the strength and viability of any country’s media sector. The MSI considers all the factors that contribute to a media system—the quality of journalism, effectiveness of management, the legal environment supporting freedom of the press, and more—to arrive at scores on a scale ranging between 0 and 4. These scores represent the strength of the media sector components and can be analyzed over time to chart progress (or regression) within a country. Additionally, countries or regions may be compared to one another. IREX currently conducts the MSI in 80 countries, and produced the first Middle East and North Africa MSI in 2005.
MSI Overview | Africa | Asia | Europe & Eurasia | Middle East & North Africa
Download the Complete Yemen MSI Chapter (PDF): 2009 | 2008 | 2006/7 | 2005
MSI Yemen - 2009 Introduction
Overall Country Score: 1.29
Yemen experienced the escalation of several internal crises in 2009. The country saw six rounds of war between the army and the al Hawthi rebel group in the northern governorate of Sa'ada. The fighting left thousands dead and injured and displaced hundreds of thousands of people. In the sixth conflict, in November 2009, Saudi Arabia was involved directly as a third party.
In South Yemen, the volatile situation worsened with the escalation of the protest movement demanding secession from North Yemen. The economic conditions in the country deteriorated further and Al Qaeda became more active. In the beginning of 2009, the terrorist group announced a merger of its offshoots in Yemen and Saudi Arabia under the leadership of "Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula."
The stained relationship between the ruling party and the opposition deteriorated further by the end of 2008, with the apporach of the parliamentary elections that had been scheduled for April 2009. The agreement to postpone the elections for two years did not result in a breakthrough and instead accelerated the political deadlock.
The overall political landscape in Yemen has complicated the major challenges that Yemeni media face already, in a profession with increasing intrinsic risks and decreasing incentives. Yemeni media have paid a price repeatedly for covering the country's crises. While wars and rebellions were fought on the ground, the press also came under fire. Authorities closed newspapers, journalists were kidnapped and assaulted, and newspapers faced prosecution in the courts. The government suspended a number of private newspapers because of their coverage of the protests in the south. Local journalists were arrested and prosecuted, and journalists working the offices of Arab satellite channels, such as Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, were harassed and had their equipment confiscated.
