Four journalists deported from Yemen

SANAA, Yemen — A British journalist says he and three other foreign reporters have been deported from Yemen after being detained for several hours.

Oliver Holmes said five armed security agents took the reporters into custody Monday morning at the apartment they shared in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital. He said one of the security agents told them they had to leave because of the stories they were writing. Holmes writes for the Wall Street Journal and Time magazine.

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Also deported was Portia Walker, a British citizen who was working as a freelance journalist for The Washington Post and other organizations, said Post Foreign Editor Douglas Jehl. Walker had entered Yemen in January on a tourist visa with the intention of studying Arabic but had registered as a journalist with the Ministry of Information. She was leaving the country on a flight to Ethi­o­pia, Jehl said.

According to Reporters Without Borders, the other journalists are Americans Haley Sweetland Edwards, who writes for the Los Angeles Times and AOL News, and Joshua Maricich, who writes for various media including the Yemen Times.

The organization said it had been told that Maricich was also deported to Ethi­o­pia, but had not been able to establish the whereabouts of Holmes and Edwards.

The deportations come as Yemen is roiled by unrest. Protesters demanding the ouster of longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh have for weeks staged daily demonstrations in Sanaa and elsewhere in the impoverished country.

The government has used violence against the protesters.