:A number of journalists have been sentenced to months in jail for merely criticising Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh in print.
The latest incident was Anisa Othman, an outspoken female Yemeni journalist for Al Wasat newspaper.
She was sentenced last Sunday to three months in jail due for two critical articles about Saleh. The lawsuit was filed by the Ministry of Information at the newly-established "press court".
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Some observers and journalists perceive this sentence as a way to intimidate Yemeni female leaders from expressing their opinions, particularly in a country in which women have to be more careful in order to live in peace.
Yesterday, the Ray party condemned this sentence considering it as "an attempt to chain women's pens."
Fatima al-Aghbari, a blogger, said this is the first time a female journalist sentenced to jail which is again meant to intimidate women.
The sentence was also a surprise for Othman, who said that it wasn't fair sentence and it was plotted against her. She also considers it as a sentence that carries out "discrimination" against women.
International and local organizations call for dropping the sentence against Othman. "The action taken against Anissa 'Uthman appears to reflect growing government intolerance of media and other peaceful criticism of the authorities, including human rights violations committed in the conflict in Sa'da Governorate and in response to ongoing protests in the south," said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International's director for the Middle East and North Africa.