Oman: Enforced disappearance of a Yemeni citizen, Abdulrahman Ali Salem Mohammed, for more than six months
Alkarama referred to the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances of the United Nations the case of Abdulrahman Ali Salem Mohammed, a Yemeni citizen who disappeared on 27 December 2013 after having been arrested at a checkpoint.
Abdulrahman, 19, usually lives in the United Arab Emirates where he has been working in cars' import/export field in Dubai. To visit his family, he used to travel frequently between Yemen and the UAE by crossing Oman.
Arrest and enforced disappearance of Abdulrahman
On 27 December 2013, he was arrested at a checkpoint in Thumrait, Governorate of Dhofar, Oman, while travelling to Dubai with another Yemeni citizen. Both were arrested and taken to an unknown place.
His family, having no news of him, took many steps before the Omani authorities to know reasons behind his arrest and place of detention. Unfortunately, the authorities have never replied to the requests or even officially recognised the detention.
It is only in April 2014 that Abdulrahman' s family obtained, for the first time, some news from his travelling companion, who was himself detained incommunicado for four months and had just been released. He confirmed that Abdulrahman was detained in the Omani Intelligence buildings.
Incommunicado detention is a form of torture
Secret detention places the victim outside the protection of the law and is therefore a serious violation of fundamental human rights. In the case of Abdulrahman, up to now, he has not been the subject of any legal procedure and is completely isolated from the outside world, and not allowed to receive visits from his family or a lawyer. Alkarama expresses great concerns about his fate and reminds that, according to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, incommunicado detention is, in itself, a form of torture.
Thus, Alkarama called upon the United Nations Working Group on Enforced Disappearances to urgently intervene with the Omani authorities to ensure that the victim be released or, at the very least, placed under the protection of the law.