HOOD and Civil Rights
As HOOD inaugurates its Human Rights Award, it is a good time to note the contribution that HOOD itself has made to the human rights environment in Yemen.
The primary focus of the HOOD Organization, the National Organization for Protecting Rights and Freedoms, is the defense of human rights in Yemen. HOOD raises public awareness of legal rights and mobilizes public support for the victims of human rights abuses. HOOD works within the judicial system to protect and defend the victims of human rights abuses. HOOD also encourages governmental bodies to secure human rights and civil rights as granted by the Yemeni constitution and international protocols.
HOOD holds the police, security forces, judiciary and other public institutions to account for violating human rights. Often victims of human rights abuses in Yemen are subject to a second wave of targeting after their claims are documented and publicized. However, once the HOOD organization adopts a case of human rights abuse, its support remains steadfast regardless of the ensuing danger and harassment.
Activism in Yemen is a risky endeavor. A variety of human rights activists have faced the wrath of the influential persons as exercised through state apparatus. The advocates at HOOD have withstood a variety of threats, abuse and other targeting and their courage and determination is an example for the world.
In this context of abusive and dominating state power, HOOD’s substantial efforts in defense of human rights has achieved significant results in three areas: 1) public awareness and expectation, 2) coordination of the human rights movement for a more effective national human rights advocacy campaign and 3) limiting power centers from unbridled human rights abuses by challenging on a case by case basis the most egregious violations, which are often perpetrated against the most powerless of victims by the most powerful of individuals and institutions.
One necessary prerequisite in advancing human rights in Yemen is the education of the Yemeni public about their constitutional rights. The history of both North Yemen and South Yemen prior to unification is one of single party authoritarian states with little tradition of organized dissent. Although lacking a tradition of civil liberties, Yemen’s arrested statehood did not result in an arrested civil rights movement, due largely to HOOD’s efforts. Broadening public awareness is one of HOOD’s fundamental achievements. HOOD has organized numerous formal informational campaigns, symposiums and dialogs. However, dialog is not limited to activists and social leaders; HOOD has organized press conferences and ongoing dialog on a grass roots level, touching all spectrums of society and a variety of topics.
HOOD has made further inroads in public consciousness by publicly tackling topics that were previously taboo. By challenging institutions that were previously immune from accountability, HOOD has worked to limit the scope of human rights abuses in Yemen.
This pattern of advocacy to publicity to mobilization has succeeded time and time again in gaining specific redress for victims of human rights abuses and well as in pushing back the boundaries of fear, shame and hopelessness for the broader Yemeni society. HOOD opens its doors to any victim of human rights abuses regardless of their identity or social status. HOOD is often the voice of the oppressed, the only hope for the hopeless, and a champion for the equal application of the law.
Among HOOD’s socially groundbreaking human rights advocacy, three areas deserve special mention.
1) Rape Victims: In Yemen, sexual abuse is often carries a social stigma for the victim and was largely a taboo subject. Among the most fundamental of human rights, the freedom from sexual assault has only recently become a public topic due to HOOD’s advocacy on behalf of several rape victims who suffered their abuse at the hands of state or tribal authorites. HOOD provided a platform for these citizens to discuss their ordeals with dignity and gave them support as they did so. HOOD’s advocacy of these cases gave the Yemeni public a new vocabulary with which to openly discuss and condemn the rapes and sexual abuses.
2) Prison Torture: Prisoners in Yemen face a devastating pattern of chronic human rights abuses. Prisoners are regularly detained without charges, held beyond their release date, held because they are unable to pay restitution and sometimes held as official hostages of the Yemeni government. Other citizens are imprisoned in tribal prisons. Torture is common in all both state and tribal prisons. HOOD has brought the issue of human rights in Yemeni prisons and freedom from torture to the forefront and created a social pressure that demands Yemeni prisoners are granted their human rights. HOOD has also undertaken substantial efforts on behalf of Yemeni prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
3) Targeted Groups: Quite frequently, groups of citizens are targeted in Yemen by identity, whether poor rural villagers in al Jashien, war refugees from Sa’ada or Jewish citizens inAmran. Often HOOD is the first and sometimes the only effective advocate in the nation willing to adopt the cases. HOOD is also a stalwart ally of a free press in Yemen where journalists have faced hundreds of violations annually, some quite brutal and shocking.
As HOOD’s Human Rights Award is publicizing the contribution of some very brave individuals, it is clear that the HOOD organization has altered the human rights situation in Yemen by challenging, through the courts and in the sphere of public opinion, human rights abuses by powerful persons, security forces, tribal leaders and others affiliated with power centers in Yemen. HOOD’s fearless advocacy is frequently on behalf of the poorest and weakest citizens in Yemen. Without HOOD’s efforts, these citizens would have no advocate for their human rights, no mechanism of publicizing their cases and no legal defense when faced with judicial bias. These courageous people that HOOD has chosen to honor are no longer invisible victims but instead, they have become national heroes.
