Yemen Observer
The women’s division of Sana’a Central Prison is full of women that should not be there but are, due to deficiencies in the courts and prosecution procedures, according to Mutaher Ali Naji, general manager of Sana’a Central Prison.
From among 57 female detainees in the prison, there are 15 accused of acts of shame or crimes against morality. Human rights organizations report that women are frequently subjected to arbitrary detention for crimes against “morals”. Some of the prisoners are accused of the Khalwa crime of being alone with a man who is not a relative. This has previously been considered a crime according to Islamic Shaira, however the new amended law of 1994 does not mention it and there is no clear law stating it as a crime.
“In Sana’a there are more than 35 prosecutions sending women to detention in Sana’a Central Prison,” Mutahar said. “Sometimes they send the women even before ending investigation procedures,” he added.
Ahlam (whose name has been changed for her privacy) rode in a car with a man who was not her relative. She was hoping to spend some time enjoying herself, but she ended up arguing with the man. Police caught them, and after few hours of investigation in penal prosecution, she was sent to prison. Another detainee, 20 years of age, went with her two friends (one of them married) to a “suspicious” place. They ended up in prison as well.
“In a conservative society such a thing will mean the end of a woman,” Husnia al-Qadri, head of the women’s research center at Sana’a university, said. “It could destroy the woman’s future as well as the reputation of her family. The worst thing is that women learn things in prison that can make them criminals,” she added.
Ameera, 22, is accused of adultery and is currently in the women’s section of Sana’a Central Prison . The one with whom she committed adultery is in prison as well. “He is the only one in the world who loves me and knows my values. I want to see him only,” she said. To Major Najeeba, a security official in the prison who informed her that her brother had come to visit her, she said, “I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to see any one of them. Don’t push me or try to convince me. Seeing them will just turn me crazy and tire me.”
If Ameera married the man that she was accused of being with, the charges would be dropped and she could get out of prison. “She should not be in prison,” Major Najeeba says. “There should be someone or some organization that could help her.”
According to the penal code, the maximum punishment for these crimes is one year, but in a report for the year 2000, several cases are documented of women convicted of zina that have spent more than four years in prison.
Khaleed al-Ansi, a lawyer for the Hood Organization for Human Rights, says that there are a lot of unjust procedures in prosecutions and the courts.
Fatima killed her husband because he had tried to rape her daughter. In the court session, the daughter changed her story under pressures from the family and the medical examination approved that the girl was still a virgin.
“The court sentenced her to death,” al-Ansi said, “neglecting the fact that the woman was trying to protect her daughter.”
Sonia stole gold. She has spent two years in prison where she delivered her son. She has served the period of her sentence but she is unable to get out of prison until she repays the value of the gold. Her husband is also in prison because of helping her. Sonia does not have money and there is no one to help her.
“I hope that there are parties who could help Sonia and other such cases,” Major Najeeba said.
Fatima is in jail for killing her husband with help from her brother. Her brother was sentenced to death and executed seven years ago. Fatima was also sentenced to death but she could be released if her son Walid would forgive her, but he refuses.
“We have tried to contact him to convince him despite the fact that it is not our work,” Mutaher said. “There is no one else to do that.”
Shadh Naser, Fatima’s lawyer, said that the Supreme Court sentenced Fatima to four years in prison. They retried her despite the law stating that a sentence of the Supreme Court should not be retried. Fatima has had four sentences; the last one being the death sentence.
“Unlike Amina al-Tuhaif’s case, where there are films about the injustice of her trial, Fatima’s case was neglected,” Shadh said, adding that people did not know that Amina would return to jail on the accusation of adultery.
Yahia al-Haidari, responsible for quality and reform in the prison, says that there are a lot of cases that show the deficiencies in the courts and the systems and procedures of prosecution. He added that there are detained women who wait in prison for months while their cases undergo investigation. “Many of them are waiting years for sentencing. Sometimes those years of waiting are more than what their crimes would be punishable for.”
He said that the change of judges and the court vacation of four months is one of reasons behind their unjust stays in prison. “One of the detainees waited for four months to receive a copy of the primary court’s sentence. The period of appeal ended before she received a copy of her sentence,” al-Haidari said.
Research has shown that as many as half of all women being held in prison are still awaiting formal charges and have not yet appeared before a court. In one case, a woman who had left her allegedly abusive husband was arrested and was being held in Ta’iz prison more than one year later for allegedly sleeping in the house of another man. Even when women do finally appear before a court, gender discrimination, as outlined above, affects both the hearing and sentencing of their crimes.
In a visit to Mansoora prison in Aden in 2000, Oxfam researcher Marta Colburn interviewed ten women detainees; one had been imprisoned for performing illegal abortions, two for theft, one for abuse of alcohol and six for zina. Of these ten women, only two had had their cases tried in court and had been sentenced. A majority of the remaining eight had already served more than a year in detention without trial.
Investigator Tariq, working in the South East Secretaries’ Prosecution, said that in khalwa cases police or penal investigation catch the couple and send them to prosecution. They send them to prison according to the proof and evidence they have.
“But this time there are no more khalwa crimes” he said. There are no females to investigate women in spite of the fact that there are many female suspects coming to prosecution. He said that he had investigated four detained women in the last two months. He added that he had not faced any problems or difficulties when investigating women. “Women are weaker than men and confess faster. They do not lie, especially in the face of evidence and proof, and they do not insist on their story if it is based on lies.”
He added that the prosecution, unlike the courts, does not take vacation. He denied that there is any delay of cases or torture of the suspects. “Investigation takes from one and a half to two hours,” he said. “We do not yell during the investigations, even with male suspects. There is no one saying that he has been tortured during investigation.”
Amal al-Huraibi worked in prosecution for 16 years. During this time she investigated male as well as female suspects. She moved from the South East Secretaries’ Prosecution to Passport and Personal Affairs Prosecution, saying that prosecutors did not stay in one place, but keep changing offices.
She deals with many accused women in Passport and Personal Affairs Prosecution. She said that most of them are accused of forged personal information; especially marital status, particularly in changing their status from divorced to married or single. Some of them do that in order to travel with their children outside of the country.
Some men use the visa and personal information of their ex-wives to be able to travel with their new wives. The women are detained for using the other identity. But Amal deals more with non-Yemeni women who are illegally residing in the country or those who have committed crimes such as stealing while working as house staff.
According to many human right organizations, the law stating that a female shall be held in prison until one of her male relatives comes to get her has been changed.
“There is not a single woman in prison after the completion of their detention period,” Mutaher said. “We release them when they have served their sentence period and they are free to go where they want.” There are shelters that women can go to after being released from prison or for those women who have no home to go to, among them the center for women in Aden and the GTZ shelter.
