Torture and Enforced Disappearance in Yemen Receives Significant International Attention – United Nations Palace
Geneva – United Nations Palace
The issue of torture and enforced disappearance in Yemen attracted wide international attention during a human rights seminar organized by the Irada Organization against Torture and Enforced Disappearance at the United Nations Palace in Geneva, with the participation of representatives of United Nations mechanisms, diplomatic missions, and international organizations, who discussed the situation of victims, ways to strengthen international accountability, and end the policy of impunity.
The seminar was attended by representatives of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, the team concerned with supporting victims of torture, the team concerned with the sale and exploitation of children, and the team of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, in addition to representatives of the embassies of Germany, Belgium, and the United States, as well as a number of human rights defenders, journalists, and representatives of international organizations, in a presence that reflected the growing international interest in the issue of abductees and forcibly disappeared persons in Yemen.
During the seminar, the organization revealed new details about one of the secret prisons operated by the Houthi militia, presenting maps, documents, and information that it said documented the location of a secret facility where 752 abductees and forcibly disappeared persons are being held, including 237 children, as part of its new human rights report, “Behind the Walls of Silence.”
The seminar was opened by journalist Abdulrahman Seilan, the session moderator, who stressed that the continued crimes of torture and enforced disappearance require more effective international action. Dr. Omar Kazabah delivered a legal intervention addressing the legal responsibility for these crimes, emphasizing that torture and enforced disappearance are among the gravest violations requiring accountability and an end to impunity.
In a moving speech, the organization’s president, Sheikh Jamal Al-Maamari, himself a survivor of torture and enforced disappearance, shared his personal experience, stressing that the suffering of victims does not end upon their release from prison but continues for many years. He called on the international community to take urgent action to reveal the fate of all forcibly disappeared persons, secure the release of all arbitrarily detained individuals, provide justice for victims, and hold those responsible for these crimes accountable.
The seminar also included a recorded intervention by French journalist Anna Gonzalez on the role of the media in documenting war-related violations in Yemen. Former detainee Qais Ali Thabet presented first-hand testimony about the torture he endured inside Houthi detention facilities, followed by the testimony of Amat Al-Wali Qais Harmal, who portrayed the suffering of the families of abductees and forcibly disappeared persons and the profound psychological and humanitarian consequences of these crimes.
The organization also screened a documentary report documenting part of the suffering of victims and their families before officially launching its human rights report, “Behind the Walls of Silence,” which documents testimonies, evidence, and information relating to crimes of torture and enforced disappearance inside secret detention facilities.
\ In its concluding statement, the organization affirmed that the secret prison exposed in the report represents an extremely dangerous model of an unlawful detention system, stressing that the 752 forcibly disappeared persons are not merely numbers but human lives awaiting freedom, and that the detention of 237 children constitutes a crime against childhood and humanity.
The organization called on the international community and the United Nations to take urgent steps to determine the fate of all forcibly disappeared persons, secure the unconditional release of all arbitrarily detained individuals, enable the International Committee of the Red Cross and relevant United Nations mechanisms to access all places of detention without restrictions, hold those responsible for crimes of torture and enforced disappearance accountable, and support programs for victims’ rehabilitation and reparations.
The seminar concluded with an open dialogue between representatives of the United Nations, diplomatic missions, international organizations, and attendees, addressing ways to strengthen international accountability mechanisms, support victims and their families, intensify international efforts to end crimes of torture and enforced disappearance, and ensure that their perpetrators do not escape punishment.
Irada Organization against Torture and Enforced Disappearance
Friday, 3 July 2026Geneva – Switzerland
