On September 21, 2o14, the Houthi rebel forces in Yemen took over the capital, Sana’a. The Houthis forced Yemen President Hadi to resign, with the help of former president Saleh. During this raid, the Houthi forces took over private buildings and institutions (Middle East Monitor).
With the Houthi take over of Yemen’s capital, more information was filtered and censored than ever before. Before the conflict started, Yemen had a history of media filtering and censorship with the previous regimes. Opposition sites were blocked and a variety of websites that are deemed offensive (Foreign Policy).
With a new form of leadership in Yemen’s capital, the new authorities are censoring information by stopping information from exiting the country, and blocking access to communication entirely, by either cutting of the internet or phone services or limiting the amount of fuel people have access to to power their devices.
In an article named “Information Controls During Military Operations: The case of Yemen during the 2015 political and armed conflict”, the researchers study how the Houthi rebels use different tactics to prevent the flow of information throughout Yemen. Since 2014, Yemen’s access to information has been hindered due to deliberate power outages and fuel shortages, and censoring and filtering of all information (18). With fuel shortages and power outages, Yemenis cannot power their electronics to reach information.
The article discusses how the Houthi forces ban domestic media outlets from sending news updates to their subscribers (2). The forces raid and shut down TV stations, radio stations, arrest journalists and other newscasters and block websites. YemenNet, Yemen’s national internet service provider, is controlled by the Houthi forces. Nationally, YemenNet filters content, for example Israeli domains and opposition sites (3).
The Houthi forces are not the only actor in preventing information flow throughout Yemen. Attacks on electricity grids and the scarcity of fuel affects how Yemenis receive information. People cannot turn on their televisions, computers or phones to receive information without electricity or fuel for generators. The Saudi-led coalition blockades at big ports are preventing the flow of fuel throughout the country (8). Shortages in fuel and the inconsistent electricity access has prevented newspapers from publishing papers (14).
The researchers of the article also talk about The Yemen Cyber Army, a group to claim to have hacked into Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry, and a group that some speculate it has connections to Iran (Franceschi-Bicchierai), is also affecting the information within Yemen. Similar to Syria’s Syrian Electronic Army, the Yemen Cyber Army targets websites and spreads pro-regime tendencies and also targets Saudi websites (25).
The article talks about how a Canada-based company called NetSweeper is used by Yemen’s internet service provider. These products are used to filter political information, censor private and independent news outlets, and all websites with the Israeli domain (2). They found that NetSweeper is actively updating their devices within Yemen, however was implemented before the Houthi takeover of Yemen’s capital.
The article discusses how even though the Houthi forces implemented harsh censorship of information by means of attacking individual journalists or attacking stations, or blocking websites, there was already an advanced program that was used to block information (56). The physical violent attacks on the flow of information throughout the country is layered with a sophisticated contracted company that filters information makes Yemenis access to information next to impossible.
