In his recent book Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield, Jeremy Scahill, the national security correspondent for The Nation, writes movingly and angrily about the case of jailed Yemeni journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye. (The book's final line is "He should be set free.") Shaye exposed a reported Yemeni government attack on Islamic militants as actually being a U.S. military strike that killed 35 women and children, a scoop for which he was reportedly beaten and then convicted and imprisoned of aiding Al Qaeda. In February 2011, as the Yemeni government was preparting to release Shaye under public pressure, President Barack Obama called his Yemeni counterpart and "expressed concern" about the release. Shaye remained behind bars.
At least until now. Tweets Scahill:
Journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye, kept in a Yemeni prison at Pres. Obama's request, is reportedly free & on his way home
Watch Scahill talk about Shaye and other White House behaviors toward journalists in a Reason.tv interview below:
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