On February 14, 2011, the jihadi forum Shumukh Al-Islam released a six-minute video of Yemeni-American jihadi cleric Anwar Al-'Awlaki titled "A Message to the Members of the Media." In it, Al-'Awlaki accuses the U.S. and the West of using liberty and freedom of expression as a pretext to take over the world's resources and treasures, oppress the peoples, and deprive them of their rights. He says that whenever anyone tries to expose "the truth about the U.S. and its agents," the West drops the principle of liberty it pretends to defend and proceeds to silence and arrest the offender, and to prosecute him on false charges.
As examples, Al-'Awlaki mentions numerous journalists who he says were arrested after exposing U.S. crimes - most notably Yemeni journalist 'Abd Al-Ilah Shai', who was arrested by the Yemeni authorities for alleged ties to Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Al-'Awlaki extols Shai's journalistic professionalism and calls on all Muslim journalists in Yemen and worldwide to step forward in his defense, saying that they must "continue the campaign he began" and should not serve as "a means of promulgating the American imperialist plot." ...
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