Yemen: Prominent politician Mohammed Qahtan still forcibly disappeared after more than seven years

The family of prominent Yemeni politician Mohammed Qahtan keeps suffering from their relative’s seventh years of enforced disappearance. He had been kidnapped by Houthi gunmen shortly after their takeover in September 2014.

Alkarama shares the concern of the Qahtan family, which only recently issued a statement accusing the Houthi group, which calls itself Ansar Allah, of violating his right to life. The statement had followed declarations made by a militia leader denying Qahtan's detention by the Houthis and blaming instead supporters of former President Ali Saleh, former Houthi’s ally who was killed by the militia.

Between 20 and 30 October 2015, Alkarama sent an urgent appeal the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) as well as two urgent appeals to the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) on behalf of Islah’s leader Mohammed Qahtan.

Early morning on 4 April 2015, more than a dozen men from the Houthi-Saleh Coalition dressed in civilian clothes and military uniforms stormed into the house of 57-year-old Mohamed Qahtan in Sana'a and arrested him, before taking him to an unknown location. Before his abduction, Qahtan had already been put under house arrest by the Houthi-Saleh Coalition for belonging to the Islah opposition party.

For the past years, the Houthi group controlling Sana'a have refused to allow Qahtan’s family to communicate with him or be informed of his fate, in violation of UN Security Council Resolutions demanding the safe release of all political prisoners, and all individuals arbitrarily detained.