Abdul Bary Taher

Abdul Bary Taher is leading figure in the fight for press freedom in Yemen. He began his career as a journalist in 1973, writing for the daily Al-Thawra (Revolution). He served as its editor in chief between 1990 and 1992 but has paid a high price for the independence and outspokenness of his editorials. He has been subjected to harassment by the authorities, having been taken in for questioning five times and ending up in prison. Taher is a founding member of the Yemeni Journalists Union and was its president from 1976 to 1998. A staunch defender of freedom of the press, he received the first press freedom prize awarded by the Yemeni NGO the Freedom Foundation in 2013.