The journalist's family informed Alkarama's representative in Yemen that Mr Shaie undertook a hunger strike on Sunday 12 February for an indefinite period in protest against his continued detention following an arbitrary ruling by the State Security Specialised Criminal Court last year and despite this ruling being cancelled following an amnesty pronounced by former president Ali Abdallah Saleh.

The brother of the detained journalist, Mr Abdel Qudos Shaie, said that he was allowed to visit his brother in the Political Security Prison on 14 February, that is two days after he declared his hunger strike, and he saw that his brother already was struck with clear signs of exhaustion. He was only able to walk with great difficulty and suffered kidney pains as a result of his poor detention conditions. He added that it was regrettable that the prison authorities denied knowledge of his brother's hunger strike in an attempt to evade responsibility for the danger posed to his brother's life.

Many local media outlets have reported the news of the journalist's hunger strike. The Yemeni Journalist Union organised a large legal and media pressure campaign to demand his release, including a protest in front of the American Embassy in Sanaa. Many activists and journalists blame the continued arrest, punishments and arbitrary procedures against Mr Shaie on direct American interference in his case, as a result of his role in exposing the crimes of extra-judicial executions and the killing of innocent civilians by American drone attacks in Yemen, under the pretext of the "war on terror".

More than 140 activists and journalists inside and outside Yemen launched the campaign known as "Free the journalist Abd al-Ilah Haidar Shaie" asserting that his continued arrest is a clear breach of both national laws and international human rights treaties, particularly those relating to the right to freedom of expression and opinion.

The lawyers of Mr Shaie say that the court proceedings against him fail to provide the necessary guarantees of a fair trial, and that the authorities did not provide any evidence that would warrant the conviction he received but instead committed obvious violations of his rights during his arrest, detention and trial.