December, 04 2014, 03:30pm EDT
CPJ Calls for Release of U.S. Journalist Held in Yemen
NEW YORK
The Committee to Protect Journalists calls for the immediate release of U.S. freelance journalist Luke Somers, who has been held hostage in Yemen for more than a year. Following a video released on Wednesday that showed the journalist pleading for his life, U.S. government officials issued press releases today publicly acknowledging that Somers was being held by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. CPJ did not previously report the case at the request of the family, who today released a statement about the kidnapping.
"We call for the immediate release of Luke Somers, who went to Yemen to gather and report news about the country at a critical juncture in its history," said CPJ's Middle East and North Africa program coordinator, Sherif Mansour. "We hope that Luke, like Matt Schrier and Peter Theo Curtis, journalists released by Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria after prolonged captivities, will be able to return home safely to his family soon."
Somers was kidnapped on a busy street in the middle of Sana'a in September 2013, according to news reports. No group claimed responsibility, but Somers' colleagues told CPJ at the time that they feared he was taken by Al-Qaeda or would be sold to them.
Somers, who was born in U.K. and is an American citizen, moved to Yemen, where he soon began working as a freelance journalist, according to news reports. His coverage of the 2011 revolution in Yemen and its aftermath has been published by international and local outlets, including Al-Jazeera English, BBC, Foreign Policy, Inter Press Service, National Yemen, New York Times, and Yemen Times. At the time of his kidnapping, he was working in the media office as an English editor and translator for the National Dialogue Conference, a body formed as part of the reconciliation process after former President Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down in 2012.
In a video released today, Somers' brother, Jordan, and mother, Paula, appealed for Somers' release and said they did not know why Somers was targeted or why he is still being held. "Luke is only a photojournalist, and he is not responsible for any actions the U.S. government has taken," his brother says in the video.
Late Wednesday, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) released a three-minute video on YouTube publicly acknowledging for the first time that it is holding Somers captive. In the video, which was reviewed by CPJ before being removed from YouTube, Somers says he was kidnapped in Sana'a more than a year ago and says that his life is in danger. His statement is preceded by Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi, one of the leaders of the AQAP, saying that Somers "will meet his inevitable fate" unless the U.S. meets the group's unspecified demands.
Senior U.S. and Yemeni officials told ABC that they did not know what those demands were but speculated they may involve a prisoner exchange.
In the video, Al-Ansi also warns U.S. President Barack Obama from undertaking any more "stupidities" like the attempt last month to rescue Somers in a special forces raid. In a press release today, National Security Council Spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said President Obama had authorized a rescue operation in coordination with Yemeni security forces to save Somers and other hostages after receiving reliable intelligence of their location but that Somers was not present when the forces arrived.
According to news reports citing Yemeni officials, eight hostages were freed after a gun battle with the militants but five other hostages, including Somers, were not rescued. The Associated Press, citing Yemeni security officials, reported that the body of another hostage held with Somers, Rashid al-Habshi, was found on Wednesday. The reports said the U.S. government had originally asked the media not to report on U.S. involvement in the raid for fear it would increase the danger that Somers faced.
CPJ documented at least seven other abductions of journalists in 2013, all but one of whom were local Yemeni journalists. Three months before Somers' kidnapping, Radio Netherlands Worldwide correspondent Judith Spiegel and her husband were kidnapped and held until December. The other six journalists were also eventually released. According to CPJ research, journalists in Yemen are often targeted for kidnapping for the work they published or in hope of getting a ransom or gaining leverage for economic and political concessions.
Earlier this year, Buzzfeed journalist Gregory Johnsen narrowly escaped a kidnapping attempt on the same street where Somers was taken, according to an article he wrote about the incident.
The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide. We defend the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal.
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Trump Ripped for 'Absurdly Low' and 'Racist' Refugee Cap Prioritizing White South Africans
"Let's call this what it is—white supremacy disguised as refugee policy," said the head of the Haitian Bridge Alliance.
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After months of reporting, President Donald Trump's administration on Thursday officially announced that it is restricting the number of refugees for this fiscal year to 7,500, with most spots going to white South Africans—a policy swiftly denounced by human rights advocates and Democrats in Congress.
"This decision doesn't just lower the refugee admissions ceiling. It lowers our moral standing," said Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge. "For more than four decades, the US refugee program has been a lifeline for families fleeing war, persecution, and repression. At a time of crisis in countries ranging from Afghanistan to Venezuela to Sudan and beyond, concentrating the vast majority of admissions on one group undermines the program's purpose as well as its credibility."
The Trump administration's notice in the Federal Register doesn't mention any groups besides Afrikaners, white descendants of Europeans who subjected South Africa's majority Black population to a system of apartheid for decades. Multiple rich Trump backers—including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, venture capitalist David Sacks, and Palantir founder Peter Thiel—spent time in the country during those years.
The 7,500 cap, initially reported earlier this month, is a significant drop from both the 40,000 limit that was previously reported as under consideration by the Republican administration, and the more than 100,000 allowed under former Democratic President Joe Biden.
Four congressional Democrats who serve as ranking members on related committees—Reps. Jamie Raskin (Md.) and Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), along with Sens. Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Alex Padilla (Calif.)—issued a joint statement condemning the new cap, which they noted is "an astonishing 94% cut over last year and the lowest level in our nation's history."
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The four lawmakers continued:
The administration has brazenly ignored the statutory requirement to consult with the House and Senate Judiciary Committees before setting the annual refugee admissions ceiling. That process exists to ensure that decisions of such great consequence reflect our nation's values, our humanitarian commitments, and the rule of law, not the racial preferences or political whims of any one president.
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This week alone, Hurricane Melissa killed more than 20 people in Haiti, and health officials said that the Rapid Support Forces, which are fighting against Sudan's government, killed over 1,500 people—including more than 460 systematically slaughtered at a maternity hospital—in the city of el-Fasher.
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Amy Fischer, Amnesty International USA's director for refugee and migrant rights, also tied Thursday's announcement to the broader agenda of the president—who, during his first term, faced global condemnation for policies including the forcible separation of families at the southern border.
"Setting this cap at such an absurdly low number and prioritizing white Afrikaners is a racist move that will turn the US's back on tens of thousands of people around the world who are fleeing persecution, violence, and human rights abuses," said Fischer. "Refugees have a human right to protection, and the international community—including the United States—has a responsibility to uphold that right."
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Republican Party officials are now using their "connections" to the Trump administration to threaten journalists into dropping critical coverage.
That's what Doug Bock Clark, a reporter for ProPublica, recently discovered as he worked on a feature-length story on the rise of Paul Newby, the Republican chief justice of North Carolina's Supreme Court, who has become one of the most quietly influential jurists in the nation.
The piece published Thursday examines how Newby, a born-again Christian who was elected to the bench in 2004, believes he was called by God to exact what he calls "biblical justice."
Over the past two decades, Clark wrote that Newby has "turned his perch atop North Carolina’s Supreme Court into an instrument of political power" and "driven changes that have reverberated well beyond the borders of his state."
Newby's most significant contribution has been the landmark decision that legalized partisan gerrymandering in North Carolina, a state that had long had some of the strongest laws in the country against partisan redistricting.
The change led the state's Republican-controlled Legislature to draw up wildly slanted maps that netted the GOP an additional six seats in the US House of Representatives in 2024, handing the party a national trifecta at the beginning of President Donald Trump's second term, which has allowed him to wield extraordinary power almost totally free of oversight from Congress.
It's just one of the ways, Clark said, that "Newby has provided a blueprint for conservatives to seize most of the nation’s state supreme courts, which have increasingly become the final word on abortion rights, LGBTQ+ rights and voting rights."
The report drew from more than 70 interviews with those who know Newby professionally and personally. But he was unable to get in contact with Newby himself.
"I reached out to Newby multiple times during the course of my reporting and was even escorted out of a judicial conference while trying to interview him," Clark wrote on social media. "The court’s communications director and media team also didn’t respond to detailed questions."
When Clark attempted to contact Newby's daughter for comment, he instead received an ominous message from that aforementioned communications director, Matt Mercer.
Mercer ranted that ProPublica was waging a “jihad” against “NC Republicans,” which would “not be met with dignifying any comments whatsoever.”
He continued: “I’m sure you’re aware of our connections with the Trump administration, and I’m sure they would be interested in this matter. I would strongly suggest dropping this story.”
As Clark pointed out, "He bolded and underlined 'strongly,' in case we missed his point."
After the story, which made note of Mercer's threat, was published, Mercer then doubled down on social media, urging Trump to "feed ProPublica to the USAID wood chipper," referencing the president's near-total stripping of funds from the foreign aid agency.
Trump has issued an executive order slashing federal funds for media organizations supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, like NPR and PBS, in response to critical coverage of his administration. But it's not entirely clear how he would actually go about doing such a thing to ProPublica, which does not receive government dollars but instead subsists on private grants and donations.
At any rate, Mercer's messages were widely perceived as a not-so-veiled attempt to coerce ProPublica into ceasing its inquiries.
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Wiley Nickel, the former Democratic US House representative for North Carolina's 13th District, lamented that it was "not normal" for a party official to "threaten ProPublica with retaliation from Trump" for writing a profile about another GOP official.
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Graham Platner isn't on the ballot until next year, but while campaigning across Maine for the June Democratic primary, the US Senate candidate is rallying opposition to Question 1, which state voters are set to decide on in Tuesday's election.
If approved, the ballot measure would "eliminate two days of absentee voting, prohibit requests for absentee ballots by phone or family members, end ongoing absentee voter status for seniors and people with disabilities, ban prepaid postage on absentee ballot return envelopes, limit the number of drop boxes, require voters to show certain photo ID before voting, and make other changes" to state elections.
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As the Maine People's Alliance Beacon reported Thursday, "Platner will also host a 'Save Absentee Voting' concert and rally featuring Griffin William Sherry and The Ballroom Thieves in Portland on Sunday, November 2 at 1:00 pm at the State Theatre."
Last year, more than 370,000 Mainers sent in absentee ballots. This year, early voter turnout "is outpacing the last off-year election," with over 76,000 voters having turned in ballots as of Tuesday afternoon, according to the Maine Morning Star.
Organizations from across Maine "who believe that fair, open, and accessible elections are the cornerstone of our democracy" have come together to form the Save Maine Absentee Voting Coalition. They include the state chapters of the ACLU, AFL-CIO, and League of Women Voters as well as Maine Conservation Voters, Maine Education Association, Maine Equal Justice, Maine People's Alliance, Natural Resources Council of Maine, Planned Parenthood Maine Action Fund, and more.
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