Amnesty International has weighed in on the case of a New Zealand journalist jailed in war-torn Yemen.
Glen Johnson, 28, a King Country freelance journalist, was arrested and imprisoned last week in the Lahj province.
The organisation, along with his parents, is concerned by the apparent incommunicado detention Mr Johnson is in.
Amnesty is calling for his whereabouts to be disclosed immediately and for Mr Johnson to have access to a lawyer and contact with his family.
It is still unclear why Mr Johnson was arrested. Amnesty say if he committed an internationally recognised crime the Yemen authorities must bring charges against him without delay. However, if he was “peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression then he must be immediately and unconditionally released”.
The organisation is concerned the longer Mr Johnson is detained, the likelier it is he could face torture and other ill-treatment, particularly given the country’s “renowned record of torture”.
His father Mike says his son is usually a level-headed person.
“You don’t know how you’ll cope. I don’t know how I’d cope in a prison,” he says.
“And of course, you’ve got the presence of al-Qaeda down there and they don’t like Westerners. So there’s all these things in a melting pot and you think, ‘Good grief’.”
Mr Johnson says his son was working on an article about people-smuggling when he was arrested.
Amnesty says Yemen has a history of restrictive press laws and repressive actions by the security forces. A 2011 Amnesty International study details how people linked to the media were “harassed, prosecuted and imprisoned”. The organisation says the increasing unrest in Yemen this year has caused authorities to pass an emergency law in March, “giving them the power to suspend, seize and confiscate ‘all media…and means of expression’ as well as extensive powers of detention without being bound by the Criminal Procedure Law”.
3 News/RadioLive