A Yemeni court has sentenced in absentia a female journalist to one year in prison for insulting the president. Anisa Mohammed Ali Othman told The Associated Press Sunday that the two-year-old case over a pair of articles she wrote about corruption and injustice in Yemen was politically motivated.

Othman, who has also been ordered suspended from writing, spoke from Taizz, south of the capital. Her employer, Jamal Amer of Al-Wasat weekly, was fined 10,000 riyals ($50) and said the verdict was cruel and illegal.

The Cairo-based The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information described the sentence as the first against a female Arab journalist. "I don't think I have written anything that breaks the law. I have written about corruption, the absence of justice and human rights violations. I did not mention the president by name, but according to the constitution, he is in charge of the country," she said.

Copyright Associated Press, 2010