Apart from constant power outages, a mercurial National Dialogue in the capital, and the unpredictable threat of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Yemen appears relatively settled in its usual state of dysfunctional normalcy. Yet just a day before the country’s national celebrations of North-South unification, hundreds of thousands arrived in Aden from all corners of the South calling for independence. The protests, which were organized by the secessionist movement al-Hirak, began on the morning of May 21 and lasted until midnight. Needless to say, Yemeni national television did not broadcast or announce the event. The only foreign correspondent covering the protests was a reporter for a Russian television channel.

At a time of high democratic rhetoric brought to the region by the Arab Spring, not much has changed for the South of Yemen. An alarming crackdown on freedom of expression by the transitional government since President Ali Abdullah Saleh was ousted in 2011 shows no sign of easing any time soon. In March 2012, the offices of Al Jazeera  and al-Arabiya were raided, with bureau chiefs interrogated over the coverage of southern unrest. The Committee to Protect Journalists reported on its website that Fathi bin Lazrek, editor-in-chief of Aden al-Ghad, received an anonymous death threat on May 7. The message urged him to stop his reporting on the South or risk having his newspaper’s premises burnt down — with him inside.

Despite its current state of general disorganization, the transitional government has become quite creative in its suppression of national movements. Rather than outright confrontation, it engages a variety of ploys to isolate movements from international attention, fearing that more “traditional” tactics of using force might garner unwarranted attention and sympathy for such groups. The new policy involves media blackouts of events combined with the intimidation of reporters, preventing them from visiting the South. Checkpoints in Lahj and Abyan have also been fortified with central security officers in an attempt to stop protesters reaching Aden. Some of these officers exchanged gunfire with protesters the day before the May 21 demonstrations.

The scenario is worryingly reminiscent of the 2003 Houthi rebellion in the North, where an uprising, for ideological and political reason, took hold of the city of Sada'a, igniting a war that cost thousands of lives. Rather than having a calming effect, information blackouts in Sada'a galvanized many people in Yemen against Houthis while intensifying their feelings of alienation, prompting the movement to seek alliances with aggressive regional actors and thus further exacerbating conflict. It is disconcerting that the transitional government expects the same tactics used ten years ago to yield different results vis-à-vis the southern movement today.