Articles for Yemen

As civil society organizations from Yemen and around the world we urge United Nations (UN) member states to work toward the establishment of an independent international criminally focused investigative mechanism on Yemen in the coming period, including at the upcoming 51st Session of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC).

Alkarama and other Yemeni and international human rights organisations issued a statement on the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, celebrated on 30 August each year.

The joint statement calls for the urgent intervention of all parties to the conflict in Yemen to ensure the release of those arbitrarily detained, and the respect of their rights to dignity, safety and security.

Alkarama received with dismay the news of the death under torture of Yemeni aid worker Yasser Junaid, who died while held incommunicado in the prisons of the Houthi group "Ansar Allah".

Alkarama had submitted a complaint to the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances  (WGEID).

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 Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) regarding the devastating effects of the escalation of the conflict in Yemen. Human rights and international humanitarian law violations by all parties to the conflict are even more alarming that they continue to affect civilians.

The United Nations General Assembly should act swiftly to establish an investigative mechanism to gather and preserve evidence of serious human rights abuses and violations of the laws of war in Yemen, a coalition of more than 60 organizations said today. Failure to act would not only be a vote for impunity in Yemen, it would be tantamount to a green light to commit further abuses and war crimes.

Families of Yemeni detainees in Guantanamo Bay, UAE, have expressed their joy at the release of their 12 detainees after a journey of suffering that lasted nearly 20 years, expressing their thanks for the efforts of human rights organisations that supported their claims and made their voices heard in the world, until their  freedom was finally restored

The undersigned civil society organisations express their condemnation and deep disappointment at the decision of the UN Human Rights Council to terminate the mandate of the Panel of Eminent Experts on Yemen, the only impartial international mechanism tasked with investigating human rights violations and gross violations of human rights and humanitarian law committed by all parties to the armed conflict in the country.

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.