Freedom Foundation for media freedom, rights and development, Yemen’s very own media watchdog organized in collaboration with the ministry of culture and Alzain Intellectual Property Organization “a qualitative symposium on the (intellectual property rights of Media), last Monday,” in an effort to bring awareness to issues related to both human rights and media rights.
While Yemen has said to be looking to embrace democratic values, in alignment with the international community, the impoverished nation has yet to fill a gap in between its democratic ambitions and realities on the ground, as civil liberties remain very elusive values in Yemen. But to activists have said to be determined in bringing awareness and actively engaging the people as to ensure that democratic and human rights values become embedded in Yemen social and institutional fabric.
Keen to carry Yemen’s media flag and promote strong journalistic values, Minister of Culture, Dr. Abdullah Awbal reaffirmed at the opening ceremony his dedication to “ raise the human rights awareness and focus on protecting the intellectual property rights of creators in various fields and mainly the journalists and artists.”
The minister added that the symposium is part of a broad campaign to tackle intellectual property rights violations in Yemen. “This symposium comes at the beginning of an extensive campaign the culture Ministry plans to organize in the field of the intellectual property rights protection after widening violations of creators in Yemen.”
Khaled al-Hammadi, the President of the Freedom Foundation told his audience, “This symposium is the first of its kind in Yemen, it is modest efforts by the organizers and aiming to stir the stagnant water in protecting intellectual property of the journalists, creators, artists, photographers and others. It is awareness efforts and mainly to raise the human rights awareness among the journalists and human rights activists in this important filed, which completely missed the attention of all various parties.”