Yemen is one of only four countries known to have executed people in the last five years for crimes committed as children. The others are Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan. President Hadi should break with Yemen’s past of arbitrary justice and state-sanctioned violence by reversing the execution orders of the three young men with signed execution decrees. Ending executions of juvenile offenders is a clear and straightforward way for Yemen’s government to show it honors its human rights commitments.

On February 26, Human Rights Watch visited several of the political and human rights activists, medics, and teachers serving sentences ranging from two years to life in Jaw Prison, Bahrain. Human Rights Watch was able to photograph and videotape their meetings with the detainees, during a five-day visit, the first allowed to Human Rights Watch by the government in almost a year, with with political prisoners and high-ranking officials. Human Rights Watch concluded, based on the discussions with officials, that authorities have made no progress in investigating and prosecuting higher-level officials responsible for the worst abuses during the 2011 protests. The abuses resulted in the death of scores of protesters and bystanders, serious injuries to hundreds of people, arrests of thousands more, and more than 300 formal allegations of torture and ill-treatment.