YEMENI WOMEN PROTEST DANISH PORTRAYAL OF PROPHET

UNCLAS SANAA 000222

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KMPI YM
SUBJECT: YEMENI WOMEN PROTEST DANISH PORTRAYAL OF PROPHET
MOHAMMED


1. On February 1, approximately 5000 veiled women marched
from Sanaa's Airport Road to the U.N. headquarters,
protesting the recent publication of caricatures of the
prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper. The women arrived in
buses, and were organized by the Saleh Foundation, a charity
run by one of President Saleh's daughters. The women were
recruited by SMS text messages on cell phones, and carried
banners critical of the Danish Government and calling for a
boycott of Danish goods. A number of major supermarkets in
Sanaa voluntarily pulled Danish goods from their shelves,
including butter, milk, and baby formula. There was no
visible anti-American sentiment.


2. These and other protests continued despite the January 31
apology on al-Jazeera of the Danish cartoonist and the
newspaper, Jyllands-Posten. Stefania Bork, Senior Media
Advisor for the Yemeni-Danish Partnership Programme (a
technical office intended to precede an embassy),said that a
number of her Yemeni employees were harassed by neighbors for
working with the Danish government. The Danish technical
office closed indefinitely for security reasons. Bork feared
that these events would harm the cause of press freedom in
Yemen, allowing opponents to dismiss reforms by pointing to
the excesses of Western liberties. Several Yemenis at the
demonstrations told Poloff that they did not see any
contradiction between the protests and support for freedom of
the press. It is the job of the press to be critical of
political leaders, they said, not of the prophets.
Khoury