Houthi prisons absent the joy of Eid.. amid official and international abandonment
Blessed Eid al-Adha comes upon us, while Muslims in the east and west of the earth receive these great days with joy, happiness, and the reunion of families, except that hundreds of Yemeni families receive this occasion with tears of sorrow and the bitterness of loss, due to the continued absence of their sons who are hidden behind the bars of the dark prisons of the Houthi militia.
We at the Irada Organization against Torture and Enforced Disappearance, and during these blessed days, extend our warmest congratulations and blessings to the patient Yemeni people, and we especially congratulate the families and mothers of detainees and forcibly disappeared persons who are writing the greatest epics of patience and steadfastness.
We cannot let this occasion pass without raising our voices loudly in condemnation of the tragic and catastrophic situation experienced by detainees in the prisons of the Houthi militia, who have been deprived of their most basic human rights, and whose Eids have turned into continuous chapters of suffering and pain.
Reports and field facts confirm the continuation of the Houthi militia in practicing the ugliest forms of systematic violations against abductees, which include:
• Detainees being subjected to severe physical and psychological torture that in many cases led to death or permanent disability.
• Depriving hundreds of citizens of their freedom without any legal justification, and completely concealing them from the outside world and from their families knowing their place of detention.
• The spread of diseases inside detention centers and preventing the entry of medicines and necessary medical care, making prisons an environment for slow death.
What doubles the bitterness of this tragedy is the state of severe neglect and clear failure toward this purely humanitarian file, and here we record our reproach and condemnation toward:
1. The leadership of the legitimacy, which did not place the file of detainees and forcibly disappeared persons at the head of its political and humanitarian priorities, and did not fully carry out its duty in real pressure for their release, or providing the necessary support and care for their families who suffer the horrors of poverty and need in the absence of their breadwinner.
2. The international community and the UN envoy: who deal with the detainees’ file as a tool for political bargaining in negotiations, instead of it being a humanitarian file that cannot be postponed, amid suspicious international silence toward the ongoing Houthi crimes and violations.
The Irada Organization against Torture and Enforced Disappearance, while condemning these criminal practices against detainees, demands the immediate and unconditional release of all detainees and forcibly disappeared persons in the prisons of the Houthi militia, and revealing the fate of the disappeared.
The Irada Organization against Torture and Enforced Disappearance demands that the Presidential Leadership Council and the legitimate government bear their legal and moral responsibilities toward detainees and their families, provide means of decent living for their families, and make this file a basic condition for any political path.
The Irada Organization against Torture and Enforced Disappearance also calls on the United Nations, the UN envoy, and all international human rights organizations to come out of the square of silence and appeasement, and exert actual pressure on the Houthi militia to stop torture and allow international organizations to visit prisons.
The issue of detainees will remain our first issue, and these crimes will not fall by statute of limitations, and the criminals will receive their just punishment no matter how long the time passes.
Freedom for the abductees, and justice for Yemen.
Issued by the Irada Organization against Torture and Enforced DisappearanceThe tenth of Dhu al-Hijjah 1447 AHCorresponding to May 27, 2026Republic of Yemen