Eradah Organization Chief meets with in the Commissioner for Human Rights office at Geneva with Ms Yasmine Ashraf, Human Rights Officer, for Special Procedures

In a meeting with Ms Yasmine Ashraf, Human Rights Officer, Special Procedures, specialized on the Middle East, North Africa and Yemen on the extrajudicial cases, Eradah Organization chief outlined the suffering of abductees in Houthis militia’s jails and the extrajudicial executions committed by Houthis militia. Sheikh Jamal Al-mamari handed over a report of 58 papers about the detainees and Houthi’s extrajudicial executions included a long list of detainees sentenced to death in Houthi’s intelligence and security service prison. Eradah Organization Chief noted that Houthis militia executed many Yemeni people in the past years, adding that he saw with his own eyes some detainees who were brutally executed inside the intelligence and security prison, including the abductee Hassan Al Hasawi, in his seventies from Sa’dah province. His a trade partner the Houthi’s leader Faris Mana’a got rid of him through sending him into Sarif prison eastern Sana’a, where he was put into solitary confinement, then he was shot by Houthis militia’s members. Before he died, was shouting for help, asked Sheikh Jamal Al-mamari to hospitalize him but Al-mamari is paralyzed and couldn’t do anything for him. UN officer Gohn Haymen met the same fate in the same prison. He was beaten and choked by the hands of Houthi’s members till he died. The dean of Yemeni abductees and prisoners indicated that hunderds of abductees distributed in Sarif, Shamlan and Hada’a pre-trial detention were sentenced to death by the Specialized Criminal Court, in addition to hunderds of forcibly disappeared detained in the opponent houses, such as the house of Ali Muhsen Al Ahmer and Alawi As-salami, seized by Houthis and turned them into secret detentions, then they were referred to the Specialized Criminal Court such as Abulaziz Al Aqeeli, Saghir Fare’a and Esmail Abu Al ghaith. In these secret detentions Houthis militia committed heinous forms of crimes, which must be classified as extrajudicial and ethnic cleansing crimes, for example, the the capital crime against 9 people of Tihama, including the under age child Abulaziz Al Aswad, on Sept 18, 2021 in downtown of Sana’a. The dean of Yemeni abductees and prisoners indicated that all of those death sentences were politicized verdicts, ran counter to all human values, Yemeni and international laws and lacked of the minimum standards of due process. It should be noted that Houthis militia extracted confession of the abductees under torture and were deprived them of defending themselves before the court. Al-mamari added that hundreds of those sentenced to death were civilians kidnapped from their homes or their workplaces, subjected during long periods of forcibly disappeared to severe torture in order to extract confession and fabricate charge against them ,such espionage. In the meeting, the dean of Yemeni abductees and prisoners told the UN Officer that the use of these unlegal courts by Houthis to pass death sentences reflected their bad political manipulation of the courts and judiciary to intimidate Yemeni civilians, deprive them of decent living. At the end of the meeting, Eradah Organization chief emphasized that all death sentences didn’t have any legal basis and had nothing in common with justice, demanding UN, the Security Council, the Special Rapporteur against torture and the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial to take firm stance against Houthis’ serious violations, immediately suspend these injustice verdicts against civilians. For her part, the Human Rights Officer indicated the work nature of UN in Yemen and that the UN intervened to halt 3 death sentences against 3 women, including Fatmah Al Arwali, adding that the Commissioner for Human Rights is in need for documented files according to the procedures of the Commissioner for Human Rights in place. Eradah Organization chief expressed his willingness to provide the Working Group with dozens of file cases this year. The meeting involved the journalist Tawfeeq Ash-shara’bi, the activist Riyadh Ad-duba’i, the activist Liza Al Badawi, Chief of Association for battered women Nora Al Jarwi, who explained the bad situation of detainees women in Houthis militia’s jails.

Issued by Eradah Organization to Combat Torture and Forced Disappearance, and the Yemeni Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violations and Torture (will & hope)

Oct 1, 2024Republic of Yemen