Yemen holding more than 1,000 political prisoners

By Zainab Mineeia

WASHINGTON (IPS) — A new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) urges Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to launch an independent commission to investigate arbitrary arrests and disappearances and to hold those responsible to account.

In the 50-page report released Friday, HRW investigated 62 cases of disappearances and arbitrary arrests linked to the Huthi rebellion. Huthis are a religious Shi’a group that is part of the Zaidi sect that comprises 45 percent of the population in Yemen.

Al-Huthi Zaidis, who take their name from their leader, Hussein Badraddin Al-Huthi, are estimated to be about 30 percent of the Yemeni population, according to Hassan Zaid, secretary-general of the al-Haq opposition party.

A second subset of Zaidis — a Hashemite group — is also the alleged target of arbitrary arrests.

The Huthi rebels began as the Zaidi Shi’a religious revivalist movement, the Believing Youth, in the 1990s under the leadership of al-Huthi. The Huthi rebellion against the government broke out in 2004 in a northern governorate of Yemen, Sa’da, when the government closed Huthi religious schools.

Since the beginning of armed conflict between Huthi rebels and the government, assorted Yemeni security agencies — Political Security, National Security, and regular criminal investigation departments — have held several hundred persons without warrant and failed to charge them with any criminal offense.

Yemeni human rights groups have documented hundreds of cases of arbitrary arrests related to the rebellion.

The government allegedly arrested family members of wanted Huthis in order to put pressure on them to surrender to the authorities. Human Rights Watch received 11 allegations of hostage-taking by government security forces in the context of the government’s conflict with the Huthi rebels.

Others have been imprisoned for publishing journals or website articles exposing the government’s abuses during the conflict.

“Dozens of people who committed no crime are still languishing in Yemeni prisons, months after the president promised to deal with their cases,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Some family members still don’t know if their loved ones who were ‘disappeared’ are dead or alive.”

Saleh, who has been in power in North Yemen since 1978 and the president of the United Republic of Yemen since 1990, declared an end to fighting in the northern Sa’da governorate on Jul. 17, 2008.

In August and September, Saleh ordered some prisoners released, but dozens remain detained without charge or trial, and some are still unaccounted for. In August 2008 the government admitted to holding more than 1,200 political prisoners.

In nearly all the cases, arresting officials did not identify themselves or inform the detainee or his family why he was being arrested or where he was being taken.

Khalid al-Sharif, a U.S. citizen and a Hashemite, was among those forcibly disappeared. Sharif had returned to Yemen in April 2008 to visit his family in San’a.

In June, 16 members of the Yemeni security forces arrested al-Sharif in a market. His parents were notified by phone that he was detained and no further information of his whereabouts was revealed. His mother desperately searched for him and he only reappeared at the headquarters of the Yemeni Political Security department on Aug. 13.

Al-Sharif remained in detention as of late September 2008.

In another documented incident, Interior Ministry officials arrested Shaikh Salih Ali Al-Wajman, an official mediator in the Huthi-government conflict, on Feb. 15, 2007.

Al-Wajman was allegedly arrested for writing an unflattering article about the government. One week later, the minister called him again to discuss Sa’da over lunch. At the ministry, Al-Wajman was sent to Mujahid al-Ashmuri, a Yemeni detention official, where he was arrested.

After three months, Al-Wajman was told he was being detained for his own protection.

“We arrested you to protect you,” the Ministry told Al-Wajman, according to statements to HRW by his son, Abdullah. “We are afraid terrorists will harm you.”

The HRW report does not address allegations of torture that Yemeni human rights organizations have made concerning some of the cases investigated.

“We did not receive first-hand information relating to torture,” said the HRW report, “but enforced disappearances greatly heighten the risk of torture, and allegations of physical or mental pain detainees suffered at hands of the captors, jailors or interrogators should form an integral part of any investigation into ‘disappearances’ and arbitrary arrests.”

The Yemeni government did not respond to a Sep. 16 HRW letter to Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qurbi inquiring about the fate of 29 named individuals. However, Yemen’s ambassador to the United States, Abdulwahhab Al-Hajjri, told HRW on Oct. 16 that he would assiduously pursue information on those 29 cases.

In the other 33 cases that Human Rights Watch investigated, those concerned preferred to remain anonymous.

HRW has presented their study as an opportunity for the Yemeni authorities to right some of the wrongs of the last four years.

“Months after the guns fell silent in Sa’da, Yemenis are still in prison without being charged with any crime,” said Stork. “President Saleh should take up this opportunity to remedy the injustices committed by his security forces and take immediate steps to ensure these abuses are not repeated.”

HRW recommends that the Yemeni government establish an independent commission with full authority to investigate all cases of suspected forced disappearances since the outbreak of armed conflict with Huthi rebels in 2004, and an immediate release for all persons held as hostages for the purpose of compelling the surrender or compliance of wanted relatives.

Yemeni security forces have battled al-Huthi fighters for the past four years.