SANA'A: Only hours after the announcement of the Yemen's new coalition government, Hassan Baoun, a prominent figure of the southern secessionist movement, was released from jail with his son. The two men were imprisoned last February as they were headed to an anti-government rally in the southern sea-port city of Aden. “My father and brother Fawaz were both released in Sanaa,” said Fadi Baoun, another son of the southern opposition leader. Hassan Baoun has been on the government's watch list for a great many years since he advocates for an independent South Yemen, away from the central government which he accuses of discrimination against southerners. Baoun currently heads the supreme council of the Southern Movement. Since Prime Minister Mohamed Basendwa and vice President Abdu Rabbo Mansoor Hadi are themselves southerners some politicians read the move as some sort of a peace offering, designed at appeasing revolutionary sentiment and move Yemen towards national reconciliation. Baoun's arrest and imprisonment back in February led to much outcry in Aden as people saw it as another attempt by the regime to muzzle the south and force it into submission. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/Tgfxa Tags: Hassan Baoun, Jail, Secessionist Section: Latest News, Yemen