Armies of Liberation

As the state of Yemen “teeters on the brink of failure”, the government of Yemen is scrambling to hide the unprecedented humanitarian crisis unfolding in the Sa’ada War.

Hundreds of thousands are displaced, starving and beyond the reach of aid groups. Food, water and medicine in the region are under government blockade and at critical levels. Military bombing is indiscriminate and targets inhabited homes, villages, cities as well as rebel hideouts in the mountains.

As a result of the regime’s desperate attempts to limit news reporting, citizens through out Yemen are subject to state violence, intimidation and arbitrary arrests.

Journalists are a frequent target. The independent News Yemen website was hacked in December. “According to the sites US hosting company, the IP of the hacker traces back to the director of the Internet Department in the Ministry of Telecommunication,” a News Yemen statement read.

Activist Amal Basha of the Arab Sisters Forum is another victim on the front lines of truth. Her office was ransacked and the brakes lines on her car cut in an assassination attempt. The editor of al Needa newspaper, Sami Ghalib, and several other journalists are scheduled in court within weeks on trumped up charges.

Journalist Mohammed al Maqaleh was kidnapped off a Sana’a street in September by Yemeni security forces and hasn’t been heard from since. Al Maqaleh is the editor of the Yemeni Socialists Party’s website, al Eshrtaki. A day earlier al Maqaleh published news of a military massacre of 87 civilians, bombed in an open field by Yemeni war planes. Graphic photos at al Eshtraki showed mangled children and bodies strewn across a sandy plain. This, along with a military bombing raid on a refugee camp days later, prompted the UN to call for an investigation into the air raids.

The enforced disappearance of Mohammed al Maqaleh is not just official retribution for writing the truth, but also a tactic of intimidation directed Yemen’s vibrant community of journalist and activists. Similarly in late August, the Yemeni government kidnapped a UN employee who is still in prison without charges.

In a pattern all too familiar, Yemeni security forces burst into Waleed Sharafuddin’s home in August, confiscated his computer and other electronics and dragged him off to an unknown destination. The officers are thought to be from the National Security Organization, an intelligence service behind many of the extra judicial attacks on activists and journalists, but declined to identify themselves or give any information to Mr. Sharafuddin’s family. For months, Sharafuddin’s family was in the dark and it was November before they were allowed to visit him.

Torture in prison is “widespread” in Yemen according to rights groups and the UN, making the months of incommunicado detention all the more distressing for his family.

A 2008 report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) described the “the ease and impunity with which security forces arbitrarily arrest and sometimes “disappear” persons.” HRW cataloged the victims of arbitrary arrests related to the Sa’ada War as follows:

Those arbitrarily arrested included a wide range of persons, including many who were not actively participating in hostilities against government forces. They can be grouped into three categories. First are persons effectively held hostage to pressure a wanted family member to surrender or end their human rights activities. Second are Hashemites, adherents of Zaidi Shi’ism who may have been targeted by the security forces on the basis of their religious activism. Third are Zaidis going to or returning from areas of recent fighting between the army and Huthi rebels, or who are otherwise suspected of sympathizing with them. A new and separate category which has emerged over the past two years is that of persons arbitrarily arrested for publishing information about the armed conflict, including journalists and website writers.

Waleed Sharafuddin is a Zaidi and subject to government targeting solely because of his religious identity. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of Yemenis including children are in prison because of their religious affiliation.

Sharafuddin is thought to have been “disappeared” because of his job as a UN accountant. It is likely that Yemeni security officials have interrogated Waleed about UN personnel and activities in Yemen. The UN has made no public statement to date about his disappearance.

A day before his kidnapping, the UN’s Sana’a office issued a situation report highlighting the ever-worsening conditions for “150,000 internally displaced persons (IDP) and tens of thousands of people indirectly affected by the (Sa’ada War),” and appealing tothe government to allow humanitarian access for the war refugees is to prevent the humanitarian situation from deteriorating further.

Intimidation of international organizations is nothing new. The Yemeni Health Ministry threatened to expel Oxfam from the country because “they cry in their statements to the media over things they did not see,” the quasi-governmental Yemen Observer reported.

Oxfam had warned of “another humanitarian catastrophe of terrifying proportions unfolding as the world watches from the sidelines.” The organization, which relies on the Yemeni government’s approval for its life saving work, has been conspicuously silent since the threat.

Sharafuddin’s family wasn’t able to visit him until November 18, after he was moved from the National Security to the Political Security prison. There are no charges; the man is innocent of all wrongdoing. He is a political prisoner among thousands. And the story gets worse.

During a December protest to highlight Sharafuddin’s arbitrary arrest and illegal detention, his wife Alia Al Wazir was beaten by security forces. The Yemen Center for Human Rights described the “blatant attack by the security forces” during a protest by women on the first day of Eid in front of a mosque in Sana’a.

Earlier profile, August 30: Yemen Arrests UN Employee after Report on Humanitarian Crisis