On December 1, four journalists were on death row in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, for the crime of spreading false news.

Before they were detained in 2015, Abdulkhaleq Amran, Akram al-Waleedi, Hareth Hameed, and Tawfiq al-Mansouri worked for various outlets, including the independent Al-Masdar newspaper and outlets associated with al-Islah, one of the parties in Yemen’s fragile coalition government. They were not included in CPJ’s annual prison census, which counts people imprisoned by state authorities for their reporting, because they were jailed by Ansar Allah, the militant group known as the Houthis that for the past seven years has controlled Sanaa and its institutions – including the court that sentenced the four journalists to death in April 2020.

The Houthis have previously followed through on such sentences, prompting an international outcry when a firing squad executed nine men in September 2021. The threat has cast a chill over Sanaa and other parts of Yemen, where dozens of others await execution, including religious minority activists and some of the Houthis’ political opponents.

CPJ documented at least one other journalist detained in Sanaa in 2021, and is still investigating unconfirmed reports of others jailed by the Houthis, but they are not the only group claiming that authority in Yemen. Aden, a southern port city, and other parts of the south are under the control of the separatist Southern Transitional Council. Formed in 2017, the STC aims to restore the independence of South Yemen, which existed as a state prior to Yemen’s reunification in 1990.