Yemen Times: "Yemen escapes Worst of the Worst list of not free countries"

Yay, Yemen! Way to go, guys! Two-four-six-eight, for whom do we ululate--Yemen, Yemen--li-li-li-li-li-li-li!

Maintaining the same position as last year in the Freedom House annual survey on the state of global political rights and civil liberties, Yemen has escaped the list of 42 countries designated as "not free."

Each year 193 countries are judged based on events from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31. As last year Yemen is described as "partially free" with a rating of five for both political rights and civil liberties rates, and an average combined rating of five based on a 1 to 7 scale, with 1 representing the most free and 7 the least free.

"We are publishing this report to assist policymakers, human rights organizations, democracy advocates, and others who are working to advance freedom around the world. We also hope that the report will be useful to the work of the United Nations Human Rights Council," announced the team behind the report.

Of the 51 "not free" territories and countries, 17 countries and four territories were selected as Worst of the Worst due to systematic and pervasive human rights violations. With an average combined political rights and civil liberties ratings of 6.5 or 7, these countries comprise 10 percent of the world’s nations and 24 percent of the world’s population. Six of those 17 countries are Arab: Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Syria. [...]

Never let it be said that this blog does not report positive achievement.

Update: Yemen is also in the news at Al-Ahram:

South Yemen has been engulfed in violence since last April. Restive groups want to secede from the north on the grounds that they are politically "marginalised" by the central government that united with the south in 1990.

On 27 April, southern groups celebrated the "declaring [of] the war against the south", pointing to a speech by President Ali Abdullah Saleh of 27 April 1994, after which civil war broke out. Two days before the groups' celebrations, which turned to violence and riots in at least four provinces in which dozens of people were killed and injured, President Saleh warned of a new civil war if calls for separation continue.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad