(New York Times: A Living-Room Crusade via Blogging)
If you want to join the crusade, go to Armies of Liberation .com and sign the petition.
I report and link. You decide. - BJon
Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God. - Psalm 20:7
From a New York Times article, A Living-Room Crusade via Blogging:
A Living-Room Crusade via Blogging [/] By ROBERT F. WORTH [/] May 20, 2008
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Jane Novak, a 46-year-old stay-at-home mother of two in New Jersey, has never been to Yemen. She speaks no Arabic, and freely admits that until a few years ago, she knew nothing about that strife-torn south Arabian country. [/] And yet Ms. Novak has become so well known in Yemen that newspaper editors say they sell more copies if her photograph — blond and smiling — is on the cover. Her blog, an outspoken news bulletin on Yemeni affairs, is banned there. The government’s allies routinely vilify her in print as an American agent, a Shiite monarchist, a member of Al Qaeda, or “the Zionist Novak.”
The worst of her many offenses is her dogged campaign on behalf of a Yemeni journalist, Abdul Karim al-Khaiwani, who incurred his government’s wrath by writing about a bloody rebellion in the far north of the country. He is on trial on sedition charges that could bring the death penalty, with a verdict expected Wednesday.
Ms. Novak, working from a laptop in her Monmouth County living room “while the kids are at school,” has started an Internet petition to free Mr. Khaiwani. She has enlisted Yemeni politicians, journalists, human rights activists and others around the globe. Her blog goes well beyond the Khaiwani case and has become a crucial outlet for opposition journalists and political figures, who feed her tips on Yemeni political intrigue by e-mail or text message.
She says her campaign is a matter of basic principle. “This is a country that lets Al Qaeda people go free, and they’re putting a journalist on trial for doing his job?” she said. “It’s just completely crazy.”
But Ms. Novak does admit to a personal interest in the case. She and Mr. Khaiwani have become close friends, though they have never met, and neither speaks the other’s language. One of the charges against him is receiving a cellphone text message from her, as part of an alleged plot (which he denies) to aid the Houthi rebels in northern Yemen. [/]
“The penalty for this crime is usually death,” Mr. Khaiwani said during an interview at his home in the Yemeni capital, Sana, in January. A lanky 42-year-old with large, piercing eyes and a dark sense of humor, he has already been jailed four times by the authorities in connection with his journalism. Last year he was kidnapped and beaten by men he says were plainclothes police officers. [/] Mr. Khaiwani added, with a broad smile: “If you add to this my relationship with Jane Novak, it means the death penalty for sure.”
[...] It was after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that Ms. Novak, who used to work not far from the World Trade Center, first took an interest in the Arab world. “I thought it would be a good idea to write in the English-language Arabic press on subjects we could all agree on, freedom of the press, equality, stuff like that,” she said. [/] In 2004, she started her blog, www.armiesofliberation.com, adorned with a Stars and Stripes logo, and soon wrote an article defending Mr. Khaiwani, who was in prison. He wrote her a letter of thanks, addressing it to “Jane Novak, the American journalist and political analyst.”
[...] Moved by the letter, Ms. Novak started her first petition campaign on Mr. Khaiwani’s behalf. Through translators, the two began corresponding. [/] [...] It was months after their first letters before Ms. Novak could bring herself to tell Mr. Khaiwani that she was not, in fact, a journalist and political analyst, but a homemaker blogging on a laptop at home. “I didn’t want to tell you before, because I didn’t want you to lose hope,” she wrote. [/] [...] Since then, she has written numerous articles defending him in the Yemeni press. [/] [...] For Ms. Novak, the basic issue was freedom of speech. The Yemeni government has banned journalists from traveling to Saada and has tried to suppress coverage of the conflict.
[...] Ms. Novak, whose blog includes a strong counterterrorism focus, says that is a bitter irony. Yemen has a long history as a refuge for jihadists, and the Yemeni government has released numerous men convicted of terrorism charges. One of them, Jamal al-Badawi, is wanted by the F.B.I. for his role in Al Qaeda’s bombing of the destroyer Cole in Yemen in 2000, in which 17 American sailors were killed. Mr. Badawi was apparently returned to prison last fall after American officials protested.
[...] Ms. Novak readily admits that she is no expert, and that she cannot pronounce Arabic words properly. But she estimates that more than 2,000 Yemenis have contacted her since she began writing articles in 2004. She receives dozens of letters every month. Some are just a few words — “Thank you Novak don’t stop” — and some are long narratives of grief and anger. [/] [...] “Some say there’s no progress in the Middle East,” she said. “But if they could just see these people — they’re really modern heroes.” [My ellipses and emphasis]
Jim :) Smiling aka Brother Jonathan aka Toto Of Kansas | Link to my Blogs, Forums & Essays
