A court in Yemen's southeastern Shabwa province sentenced a journalist to four months in prison today, Tuesday, over a post he published on the social networking site Facebook.

Human rights sources said that the Primary Court of Ataq, Shabwa's provincial capital, sentenced journalist Aziz Muhammad Al-Ahmadi to four months in prison, suspended, pending the case filed by the local authority over a post on Facebook, in which he questioned the local authority’s leasing of land to establish a solar energy project.

The ruling sparked a wave of criticism, and observers considered it an inauguration of the crackdown on media freedoms in the province, and a dangerous indicator of the politicization of the judiciary and its use as a tool to silence media voices.