Woman Who Fell From the Sky - Jennifer Steil [78]
Zuhra interviewed her, as well as her two small children, and was shocked by the tale. “The Anisa case represents in all ways part of what we are suffering here as women,” says Zuhra. The men who put her in prison knew that no one would support Anisa, she continued. “If you are being raped and speak out about it in Yemen, you are going to be scandaled and face social denial.” It is unacceptable to talk about rape, and any woman who claims to have been raped is blamed for the crime and ostracized. Zuhra admires Anisa’s bravery and hopes she will inspire other women to speak out. Since Anisa’s protest, Zuhra adds, fewer women have been put in jail, because officials became afraid that they would be accused of abuse.
Zuhra’s stories on Anisa have prompted threatening letters from readers. But while these frighten her, she has no intention of silencing her pen. “I was afraid to cover it, but it makes me feel good about myself,” she says. She doggedly follows the story, never missing a court date and filing several front-page pieces on Anisa’s plight. “I have started my war and I have decided not to stop.”
DECEMBER 6 IS D-DAY for al-Asaadi and the Yemen Observer. I am at the office by eight thirty A.M. to check in with my staff before heading to the courthouse. Najma and Noor are late with the Culture page, so I tell them they must stay and finish it. But I am forced to relent when Mohammed al-Matari says he has spoken to Faris, who wants everybody there. Al-Matari colors his graying hair black and dresses in suits that fit him the way a refrigerator fits a stick of butter. His lapels are often stained with something, spots of tea or dried beans. There’s a kind of old-world gentlemanliness about him, a persistent chivalrousness.
Al-Matari’s insistence that everyone attend the trial shames me—I should not have tried to make the women stay in the office on such an important day. Of course they should come with us. We should be filling the courthouse and squeezing out the fanatics who will be there in the hopes of seeing al-Asaadi laid low. I am surprised when Faris himself does not show. Since the fate of his paper hinges on this trial, one would think he might want to attend. When he doesn’t appear by nine A.M., we all pile into the Yemen Observer van.
At the courthouse, Zuhra glues herself to me. We push through the mobs at the gate and building entrance and up the stairs to the courtroom.
“I haven’t missed a single court date for this trial,” says Zuhra. “Even al-Asaadi missed one date when he was sick, but I have never missed one!”
Zuhra makes Najma change places with her so she can sit next to me on the wooden bench lined with splitting, chocolate-colored cushions. The narrow courtroom fills up quickly, mostly with fellow journalists. My women are the only women in the room. I am the only westerner. I take several photographs of the crowd.
Faris never arrives.
AL-ASAADI IS LATE. He told me on the phone earlier that his lawyer had advised him to be a little late, to make a dramatic entrance I suppose. But he is so late that his lawyer finally calls him and says, “Where are you? Do you want to just go straight to jail?” (The lawyer is standing in front of us, and Zuhra translates.) He and Qasim and several other men in the front row laugh. There is much nervous laughter and chatter, but the anxiety in the room is palpable. We are all journalists; we all have a stake in this. If the Yemen Observer is shuttered, my staff and I will be jobless. I have no idea what I will do if this happens. I suppose stay and fight to get it reopened. I couldn’t possibly go back to New York now. To return to New York would be admitting defeat. Besides, I have grown attached to my reporters. I cannot imagine abandoning them.
A cheer goes up in the courtroom. Al-Asaadi has arrived, making a grand entrance from the judge’s end of the room. Men rush to the front of the pews and surround him,