Military newspaper staff demand reforms

By Majid al-Kibsi

Yemen Observer

The Ministry of Defense is holding negotiation to determine the future of the Military Moral Guidance Department which follows under the Minister of Defense after the officers and staff of the Department refused the resolution of the Minster which put the Deputy Chief of Staff an interim manager of the department.

Official Source from the department denied what happens in their department as a rebellion; he assured that it is demands to remove Ali al-Shater from the authority of the Department that issues the mouthpiece of the Military the 26 September newspaper.

“What has been published in some media is not true,” said the source to the 26 September newspaper.

“Al-Shater did not enter the Department on Monday, he didn’t give a speech and the fabricated information about arresting 73 demonstrator who turned out according to the news to follow the Muslim Brotherhood,” said the source.

The source also denied arresting any officer for receiving a YR 4 millions bribe from Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, Commander of the First Armed Brigade.

The source also added “Regarding the demands of removing the name of the Brigadier Ali al-Shater  as the Editor-in-Chief of the 26 September newspaper, Minister of Defense, Mohammed Nasser Ahmed gave his directions to leave the name as it is until the issue is solved.”

According to the source, what happened in the Department of Moral Guidance is not a rebellion, but an expression of the officers and soldiers refusal to injustice, oppression and corruption they suffered for long time under the management of Ali al-Shater, and his removing is the only demand.

The officers demanded the immediate discharge of Ali al-Shater, the chairman of the Department and all his assistants and present them to trial in a press release.

“The whole authority staff and officers demands discharging Ali al-Shater and his pawns and present them to a fair trial to get what they deserve, so that everyone gets his rights back, including the public money that was stolen,” said the release.

The release addressed the Vice President, Head of the Military and Security committee and the reconciliation government that holding the Deputy Chief of Staff and other five officers in charge of the Department doesn’t implement their will of removing corruption, injustice and the oppression practiced by al-Shater by using his military position in committing offenses according to the release.

Minister of defense assigned the Deputy Chief of Staff to handle the tasks of the Moral Guidance Authority manager after the employees demonstrated to stop him from work.

The Minister of Defense in the reconciliation government, Mohammed Nasser Ahmed allocated the Deputy Head of Staff Ali Mohammed Salah to run the Moral Guidance authority, and other five officers to handle the tasks of the 26 September newspaper that belong to the Ministry of Defense.

This move came after hundreds of officers and personnel who work in the Military Moral Guidance started a strike demanding to fire the Manager of the Authority and his deputy and assigning qualified people instead.

The officers refused on Monday morning to negotiate with the Deputy Chief of Staff demanding only to remove Ali al-Shater who they accused of corruption.

It seems that the institutional protests are contagious; Yemen TV channel head who was appointed back recently when the Minister of Information was assigned had to leave his office along with several executives after some employees of the channel had fists fight with the Production Manager.

The angry employees demanded that Hussein Basleem, who returned from the demonstration in the change square, should be fired after he and his deputy took an exclusion policy against employees, and some corruption cases his deputy was involved in, according to sources from the TV staff.

Ibrahim al-Hamdi, Monitoring Technician in Yemen Channel assured that these are natural results of the youth demonstrations. “It is a good thing which removes the corruption from the public institutions, and it is resulted from the extended time of the revolution.”

Al-Hamdi also added that there many corruption issues in the channel where many corrupted personnel group up against clean people, and that this issue is in every public institution. 

According to other sources, the employees demonstrated in front of the TV Corporation building demanding the corrupt to be relieved from the financial administration.

In al-Houdiedah Governorate, the demonstration also demanded the replacing of the managers in some public institutions according to Newsyemen.

The demonstrations in al- Houdiedah continued for over four days in the Traffic Department, Electricity Company, Naval Academy and the Oil Company, where the employees are demanding the resignation of the managers and holding them accountable for financial corruption accusations.

In Sana’a, also the employees of Political Security stopped last Wednesday the Political Security Head of Finance from entering to the building and demanded that he should be sacked.

The rescue police blocked Taiz Street last Thursday demanding the sack of their head al-Qasi. The same case also happened in the Traffic Authority