Jihad Watch: Jane Novak's heroic fight to save dissident Yemeni journalist

May 20, 2008

Jane Novak's heroic fight to save dissident Yemeni journalist

Wonder of wonders, even the New York Times has noticed, and has written about Jane without the customary superciliousness and venom it reserves for anti-jihadists.

Send your letter as part of her "Protect Media Freedom in Yemen" campaign here.

"A Living-Room Crusade via Blogging," by Robert F. Worth in the New York Times, May 20:

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Jane Novak, a 46-year-old stay-at-home mother of two in New Jersey, has never been to Yemen. She speaks no Arabic, and freely admits that until a few years ago, she knew nothing about that strife-torn south Arabian country.
And yet Ms. Novak has become so well known in Yemen that newspaper editors say they sell more copies if her photograph — blond and smiling — is on the cover. Her blog, an outspoken news bulletin on Yemeni affairs, is banned there. The government’s allies routinely vilify her in print as an American agent, a Shiite monarchist, a member of Al Qaeda, or “the Zionist Novak.”

The worst of her many offenses is her dogged campaign on behalf of a Yemeni journalist, Abdul Karim al-Khaiwani, who incurred his government’s wrath by writing about a bloody rebellion in the far north of the country. He is on trial on sedition charges that could bring the death penalty, with a verdict expected Wednesday.

Ms. Novak, working from a laptop in her Monmouth County living room “while the kids are at school,” has started an Internet petition to free Mr. Khaiwani. She has enlisted Yemeni politicians, journalists, human rights activists and others around the globe. Her blog goes well beyond the Khaiwani case and has become a crucial outlet for opposition journalists and political figures, who feed her tips on Yemeni political intrigue by e-mail or text message.

She says her campaign is a matter of basic principle. “This is a country that lets Al Qaeda people go free, and they’re putting a journalist on trial for doing his job?” she said. “It’s just completely crazy.”

Yes. Read it all. Brava, Jane!

Posted by Robert at May 20, 2008 9:40 AM
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Will she end up living in hiding?

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And this was linked in a previous thread. Not sure if anyone saw it.

Netherlands: Complaints about construction workers dress
The heads of a contractor firm working on a large renovation project in Almere were asked last week if the construction workers could change their short pants into something with longer legs. The Muslim neighbors had complained about the workers wearing such bare clothing.

In order not to succumb in the tropical heat of the past weeks, the men had exchanged their work overalls for short pants and a t-shirt. Construction workers Robin Willemsen says that they all walk around with short pants. Together with his colleagues he's renovating the outside of 750 residences in Almere.

Willemsen says that the contractor came to tell them that Muslim neighbors had complained that their clothing were too bare and too short. The comment was duly noted, but Willemsen says that they don't intend to dress in overalls in such sweltering heat.

The complaints were new for Richard Hekert of construction firm Mateboer from Kampen, and he says there were agreements about correct clothing, and that includes short pants and t-shirts too, but if residents think it's a serious nuisance, they'll see how they can solve it.

Source: Telegraaf (Dutch), h/t NRP (Dutch)
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Posted by: Borg