Articles for Yemen

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.

More than 9 months after his abduction and enforced disappearance by Yemeni forces acting on behalf of the United Arab Emirates, Yemeni preacher Abdul Qadir Al-Badhiji (Al-Shaibani), for whom Alkarama made an urgent appeal to the United Nations Working Group on Involuntary Disappearances, has been released.

A former Yemeni detainee of the Emirati secret prisons in Yemen has revealed that he was subjected to psychological and physical torture at the hands of Emirati investigators, while being held in a secret prison in the Balhaf oil complex. This complex is managed by the French company Total, in the Yemeni province of Shabwa.

Alkarama has sent an urgent appeal to the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Agnès Callamard, regarding four journalists detained in Yemen, who are  risk of execution following a trial before the Houthis' Specialized Criminal Court, which lack any guarantee of minimum standards of justice.

A report issued by the Security Council Sanctions Committee stated that all parties to the conflict in Yemen continue to commit serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, including indiscriminate attacks against civilians, enforced disappearances, and torture.

Alkarama expresses its concern about the escalation of violations against journalists in the Arab world during the year 2020. According to data published by international organizations concerned with the defense of journalists, including statistics published by the Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists, some 60 journalists and media field workers have been murdered in 2020. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists reports that there are at least 274 journalists behind bars, the highest number recorded by the Committee since the early 1990s.

Today, Wednesday 18 November 2020, Alkarama wrote to the Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances, asking it to intervene on behalf of the Yemeni preacher, Abdul Qadir Al-Badiji (Al-Shaibani), who has been missing since 30 October in the southern Yemeni city of Aden.

Since Donald Trump took office in 2017, at least 86 civilians, including women and children, have been killed in Yemen in attacks, most of which were drone strikes, by the United States of America, some with the participation of the United Arab Emirates, according to the Washington Post.

Yesterday, Thursday, October 15, 2020, five Yemeni journalists detained in the prisons of the Houthi group, Ansar Allah, were released in Sanaa as part of an agreement to exchange prisoners and kidnappers concluded under the auspices of the United Nations and of the International Committee of the Red Cross between the Houthi group and the recognized Yemeni government and Saudi Arabia, comprising 1081 prisoners while many journalists and other political activists remain in detention, including