Jane at Armies of Liberation has been successful in her campaign to free Al-Khaiwani from jail. You'll recall that President Saleh (who heads up the freaking judiciary there, presumably due to budget cuts) had him imprisoned because he criticized the government in his newspaper. After 600+ citizens (many of them associated with online journalism) signed Jane's petition requesting that Al-Khaiwani be released, President Saleh relented, rather than stay in the spotlight.

It should be noted here that Jane is a "real" journalist, and has her work published all over the world. She specifically threatened to highlight this situation in the Wall Street Journal if Saleh didn't come around. The Yemeni government was up against both traditional and online journalism, and it's a potent combination.

I want to be just like Jane when I grow up. (Uh-oh: I think that's "if.")

Seriously, thank you to everyone who signed the petition. It blows my mind that we made a difference in this way.

Go to Jane's site every day.

UPDATE: Those of us who supported Jane in her efforts are listed here, and that's where most of the pro-liberation high fives are taking place (in the comments section).

UPDATE THURSDAY: El Capitan discusses what a long shot this was from the beginning, and whether he was a cynic for thinking so.

I really don't: if dictators were so susceptible to public pressure, sanctions would have worked against Saddam Hussein. The thing is, when we can shame authoritarian rulers into doing the right thing, we should: it's much worse to have to accomplish this sort of thing by force. And it's not like our green berets are going to go into another country just to fetch a journalist.

Posted by: Attila at 03:22 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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