On 28 September 2021, Alkarama submitted a case to the UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances regarding the case of two Yemenis, Abkar Abdallah Abed Yahya BARKHALI and Tareq Ahmed Said Mohammed KHALEQ, both abducted in the course of 2016 by Houthi militiamen in the governorate of Al Hudaydah in western Yemen.

Former Yemeni prisoner Abdul Qadir Al Shaibani (Al Budhaiji) died a few weeks after his release in a very poor state of health, as a result of enforced disappearance, detention conditions and torture.
Alkarama launched an urgent appeal concerning Al-Shaibani to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances.

On 15 September 2021, the Association of Victims of Torture in Tunisia (AVTT) and Alkarama addressed the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention regarding the situation of the former Minister of Information Technology and Digital Economy, Mr Anouar MAAROUF, and the MP and President of the Parliamentary Committee on Defence, Mr Yousri DALY, who have been under house arrest since 05 and 18 August 2021 respectively.

 Alkarama and the Cairo Centre for Human Rights Studies, along with Yemeni human rights organisations, issued an urgent appeal to the UN Special Procedures on 24 September, regarding the implementation of the de facto authorities in Sana'a, the Houthi group "Ansar Allah. The appeal also concerns the unlawful sentencing to death of 9 Yemenis and the request for urgent intervention to stop arbitrary executions of detainees, as well as to address arbitrary detention by all parties to the conflict.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has expressed serious concern about the situation in Yemen, where all parties to the conflict continue to violate human rights and international humanitarian law in defiance of the fundamental principles of the rule of law.

Alkarama has written to the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances regarding three Yemenis who were arbitrarily arrested by the de facto authorities in Hudaydah, western Yemen, and taken to unknown destinations. Their families still do not know their fate to this day.

62 human rights organizations, including Alkarama, sent letter to members of the United Nations Human Rights Council ahead of the Council's 48th session, calling for the formation of an international investigative body focusing on criminal cases in Yemen and ensuring the continuity of the work of the Panel of Eminent Experts on Yemen under a continuous or multi-year mandate.

On September 6, 2021, Alkarama seized the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur against Torture regarding the situation of Mohammed AL QAHTANI, human rights defender and founding member of the Saudi Association of civil and political rights (ACPRA), sentenced on March 9, 2013 to ten years in prison and arbitrarily placed in detention in Al Hai'ir prison (Riyadh) in a section reserved for detainees suffering from psychological disorders.

The facts

Saudi human rights sources have reported that human rights defender Issa Al-Nukhaifi went on hunger strike while in detention in Al-Ha'ir prison in Riyadh, without giving details of the reason. However, according to reliable reports, the Saudi authorities have recently increased their repressive measures against prisoners of conscience and human rights defenders.