Armies of Liberation

Bickering over weapons, al Sahwa publishes another official document. This one is written by Rashad AL-Alimi to the governor of Hajja instructing him of Saleh’s order to stop (fire, arrest?) the secretary general of the local council. There is a conflict between the governor and LC SG on how to divide the weapons and money (100M SR) that Saleh distributed to his loyalists, GPC members and thugs in Hajja. As Saleh is giving out guns, some are selling them for food money.

If Saleh is arming the GPC, then its unlikely he intends to resign.

from Yemen Rights Monitor blog

Yemen Post:More than 230 people were injured when pro-regime security forces out of uniform and thugs some in female uniform attacked the anti-government protesters in the square of change in Hajjah province in northern Yemen. (Read on …)

Yemen Post: At least 30 people, deported from Saudi Arabia to the Yemeni border area of Haradh, died in the last four weeks after being stranded without food or water. (Read on …)

The Yemen Post adds a line to their write up on the car bombing: On Tuesday, reports surfaced that Al-Qaeda detainees in the Central Prison in Sana’a attacked Houthi detainees, beating them and leaving some of them in critical condition. Its unsurprising. This has been going on for years. This is not a lunchroom fight between two gangs. It is officially sanctioned, repetitive, and occurs in many jails. Al Eshteraki reports in this case, the violence occurred in the PSO prison in Sana’a (from which the the 23 al Qaeda operatives escaped in 2006): Assault on dozens of detainees, “Saada” political security in Yemen, al Eshteraki The revolving door for terrorists is frustrating but even when imprisoned, al Qaeda operatives often have a higher status than other prisoners and “perks.” The following Yemen Times article also touches on takfiri Friday sermons against Ismailis and other Shia sects, and that over 600 Houthi prisoners remain in jail despite the supposed amnesty.

Yemen Times: SANA’A, Nov. 24 — The National Organization for Defending Rights and Freedoms (HOOD) have accused officials in the Political Security Prison of inciting detained Al-Qaeda suspects against their Shiite Zaydis counterparts in the prison.

The organization said in a press release dated Nov. 23, 2010, that officials in the prison provoked suspected Al-Qaeda members who are Sunnis to assault Zaydis detainees claiming that they are Shiites and thus are ‘non-believers’.

Ali Al-Dailami, the executive officer of HOOD told the Yemen Times that his organization reported several assaults against detainees of the Sa’ada war by Al-Qaeda suspects in the prison after they were incited by officials in the prison.

“Four days ago, ten detainees including Al-Ezzi Saleh Rajeh, Nabeel Al-Ezzi Al-Mutwakel, Mohamed Ali, Abdul-Jabbar Al-Jarmozi and others were severely beaten by other inmates,” said Al-Dailami. (Read on …)

500,000 children in Yemen targeted in Back to School Campaign

SANA’A, Oct. 11 (Saba)- Half a million children in Yemen, including IDPs and refugees, were being targeted by the Ministry of Education and UNICEF in collaboration with UNHCR, Save the Children, CHF and other development partners, in a major Back to School Campaign. (Read on …)

A ten year old has no capacity to consent.

al Jazeera: The International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW) found that just under half of all girls in Yemen are married before they are 18 – classified as underage by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Yemen is a signatory.

With no legal minimum age for marriage, a study by Sanaa University found that in some of Yemen’s regions half of all girls are married before the age of 15.

“The greatest problem facing Yemeni women today is child marriages,” said Wafa Ali of the Yemeni Women’s Union. “These early marriages rob the girl of the right to a normal childhood and education. The girls are forced to have children before their bodies are fully grown.”

Many girls suffer repeated miscarriages or end up with complications brought on by the trauma of forced sex, said Dr Arwa Elrabee, a leading gynaecologist.

In April a local women’s rights group reported that 12-year-old bride Elham Shuee had died three days after marrying a man in his 20s. The girl suffered a rupture of the womb caused by sex, said Majed al-Mathhaji, a spokesman for the Sisters Arab Forum.

Last September, another 12-year-old, Fawziya Abdullah Youssef, bled to death during three days of child birth – her body, doctors said afterwards, was simply too small to cope. (Read on …)

UN

22 July 2010 – The United Nations is expressing concern about the humanitarian situation in northern Yemen, where the needs of the local population displaced by ongoing fighting vastly outstrip the funds provided so far by donors.

Less than $70 million, or 36 per cent, of the $187 million sought this year by aid agencies for assistance in Yemen has been received, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported today.

UN agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been providing relief to civilians in Yemen’s north, where Government forces have engaged rebels in sporadic armed conflict in recent years. (Read on …)

AFP SANAA — Officially, slavery was abolished back in 1962 but a judge’s decision to pass on the title deed of a “slave” from one master to another has blown the lid off the hidden bondage of hundreds of Yemenis. The judge in the town of Hajja, which is home to some 300 slaves, according to residents, said he had certified the transfer only because the new owner planned to free the slave. But his decision has triggered a campaign by local human right activists. (Read on …)