Human Rights Organization: About 1,600 Yemeni civilians, including women and children, were subjected to enforced disappearance

The National Authority for Prisoners and Abductees in Yemen announced on Saturday that about 1,600 civilians, including women and children, were subjected to enforced disappearance by the Houthi militia.

This came in a briefing by the Commission with the Yemeni Rights Organization in Ma'rib Governorate, coinciding with the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, which falls on August 30 of each year.

The Authority said that more than (1585) civilians were subjected to enforced disappearance for varying periods, ranging from two months to five continuous years, in areas controlled by the Houthi group, including (34) women and (64) children, 136 of whom are still missing at the time of providing the briefing, including 51 workers in international organizations and the former US embassy, then the forces of the internationally recognized government responsible for three cases of enforced disappearance.

The statement explained that the Houthi group adopted a clear and systematic methodology in practicing enforced disappearance as a means of silencing opposing voices and terrorizing society. The National Authority for Prisoners and Abductees team said that during the past years it had verified (1585) cases of enforced disappearance in areas controlled by Houthi militants, all of whom were civilians, headed by politician Mohammed Qaid Qahtan.

He pointed out that these statistics illustrate the pattern of these crimes, where individuals are kidnapped from their homes, workplaces, or even from the streets, without any clear charges being brought against them or being allowed to defend themselves or communicate with lawyers, according to the briefing.

The head of the De Mint organization, lawyer Fahd Al-Wasabi, said that the Houthi group did not only kidnap and disappear employees of international and UN organizations, but they also committed other violations against them that are no less serious than the crime of enforced disappearance, which are as follows: fabricating serious malicious charges against them.

He added, "These forcibly disappeared victims were accused of being agents, spies, traitors and agents of America and Israel, and that they carried out intelligence activities against the Yemeni state and people in all economic, political, educational, agricultural, military and other fields."

He stated that they were "forced to confess to these fabricated charges, and their confessions were filmed and broadcast on all official media outlets affiliated with the Houthi group, and hate speech, incitement and treason were broadcast, circulated and disseminated continuously and focused on all official and private media outlets and accounts of activists affiliated with the Houthi group against the abductees and their affiliated organizations."

Al-Wasabi stressed that these serious crimes pose a great danger to the forcibly disappeared, their families, their organizations, and their colleagues working in them, all of whom are victims and affected by these crimes against the forcibly disappeared.

The Commission called on the Yemeni government to urgently join the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, abide by it, include its provisions in legislation and laws, and activate national human rights protection mechanisms throughout Yemen, especially judicial mechanisms to protect citizens from the crime of enforced disappearance and convict its perpetrators.

The Authority also called on the Houthi group to quickly release those forcibly disappeared in their prisons, especially employees of organizations affiliated with the United Nations and international organizations, and to stop incitement, hate speech and accusations of treason against those forcibly disappeared, their organizations, their activities and their role, and to also stop obstructing the work of relief and humanitarian organizations, interfering in their activities and directing them to serve their goals.

The briefing called on the United Nations to quickly take serious, real and effective action to release all those forcibly disappeared in Houthi prisons, including United Nations employees, and to work to provide justice to the victims and condemn the perpetrators of these violations against them.

It also demanded that the Houthi group be obligated to stop the incitement and hate speech against international and UN organizations, due to its serious future repercussions on their work in Yemen and on relief and humanitarian activity in general, and to stop Houthi interference in the work and activities of relief and humanitarian organizations and diverting it to serve their agenda.

For his part, Radwan Masoud, head of the National Authority for Prisoners and Abductees, condemned the treatment and said in a press statement that this treatment prompted the Houthis to double their violations against civilians, and it reached the point of kidnapping an employee of the UN envoy’s office and storming the office of the Human Rights Commission in Sana’a.

In the context of his speech, Masoud referred to the appeals of the UN envoy's office to Omani diplomacy to intervene to release UN employees from Houthi prisons, calling on the United Nations and its envoy to Yemen to deal seriously and pressure the Houthis to release all the kidnapped, including the UN personnel.