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Viewing cable 06SANAA222, YEMENI WOMEN PROTEST DANISH PORTRAYAL OF PROPHET

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Reference ID Created Released Classification Origin
06SANAA222 2006-02-01 12:53 2011-08-24 01:00 UNCLASSIFIED Embassy Sanaa
This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
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