V. State Failure to Protect

Yemeni security forces failed to protect both protesters and local residents during the three-hour Friday of Dignity attack. Testimony and statements from witnesses to Human Rights Watch indicate that this failure was deliberate. Indeed, multiple witnesses said the Central Security Forces (CSF), one of Yemen’s best trained and equipped forces, were responsible for security in the area yet shielded the plainclothes gunmen while they shot at protesters.[119]

Both before and at the time of the attack, ranking authorities—including the interior minister and security chiefs—received repeated warnings of a potential bloodbath from lower-level security officials, protesters and local residents. Rather than send in reinforcements or attempt to defuse the situation, the CSF withdrew from the immediate area the night before the attack.

Once the attack began, CSF anti-riot forces took a half-hour to reach the scene although they were stationed only about a kilometer away. The forces that arrived were new, under-armed recruits who failed to detain gunmen in plain sight. Instead, witnesses said, they turned their water cannon and teargas on the protesters.

Even President Saleh acknowledged that the security forces were not at the scene when the shooting began.   Although his aim was undoubtedly to dismiss any police culpability for the shootings, he said during a news conference hours after the massacre, “As for the police, they were not present during this attack at all, and they did not fire one single shot. ”[120]  

Yemen’s Legal Obligations to Protect

Under international law, states are required to protect basic human rights. These rights include the right to life and the right to peaceful assembly, enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).[121]Yemen ratified the ICCPR in 1987.

Even if the gunmen were not acting on behalf of the Yemeni government, the ICCPR still holds a state responsible for responding appropriately and effectively to abuses committed by private actors. According to the Human Rights Committee, the international expert body that monitors compliance with the ICCPR, a state’s failure to ensure rights could violate the Covenant if it were “permitting or failing to take appropriate measures or to exercise due diligence to prevent, punish, investigate or redress the harm caused by such acts by private persons or entities.”[122]

The UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms (“Basic Principles”) provide that law enforcement officials “shall, as far as possible, apply non-violent means before resorting to the use of force” and may use force “only if other means remain ineffective.”[123] When the use of force is necessary, law enforcement officials should “exercise restraint in such use and act in proportion to the seriousness of the offense.”[124]

The Basic Principles also place limits on the use of force in dispersing “unlawful assemblies.”[125] They provide that “intentional lethal use of firearms may only be made when strictly unavoidable in order to protect life.”[126]

The Basic Principles call on law enforcement officials to “respect and protect human dignity and maintain and uphold the human rights of all persons.”[127]  Failing to take even the most minimal steps to stop gunmen from shooting live ammunition at protesters is contrary to the Basic Principles, which requires that law enforcement officials fulfill their duty by “protecting all persons against illegal acts.”[128]

Yemen’s Law on Organizing Demonstrations and Marches of 2003 requires security forces to protect demonstrators and provide medical care. Security forces must disperse demonstrators when crimes are being committed and in the event of riots.[129]

Central Security Withdraws Early, Returns Late

Brig. Gen. Yahya Saleh, the then-president’s nephew and during the uprising the de-facto chief of the CSF, was fully aware of repeated acts of violence around Change Square in the days preceding the Friday of Dignity. For example, the CSF chief told a news conference the day before the Friday of Dignity:

Residents have been upset about the expansion of the protesters.  When the new neighbors saw what the others had suffered, they refused any expansion by the protesters, and clashes emerged between them.[130]

Abd al-Rahman Hanash, then the police chief for Sanaa, told prosecutors after the attack that he had alerted then-Interior Minister Mutahar al-Masri, who ostensibly controlled the CSF and the regular police forces, to the potential for bloodshed the night before the Friday of Dignity as well as to the attack itself. He said al-Masri responded by saying, “ ‘I know,’ but did not give us any orders”:

I informed the minister of interior the night before Friday . . . about the increasing tension and that there was a chance that protesters might march towards Ring Road and attempt to remove the wall and that residents surely will not allow them to do so…. Then I informed him again at approximately 10 a.m. Friday morning, then again when the shooting began.[131] 

Abd al-Rahman Hussein Shaiban, a PSO officer who lived near the wall, also testified that he had alerted the PSO in advance to “the wall that was being built and the problems between the neighbors and the protesters.”[132]

Despite these warnings, the CSF anti-riot police left the area of Change Square and the wall around midnight the night before the attack and moved to Zubairy Bridge, an overpass above Kentucky Roundabout, about a kilometer to the south, according to Hanash, the police chief, and other witnesses.[133] Three to four teams of CFS forces withdrew from the area around the wall.[134]

Once the shooting began, security officials again alerted security authorities repeatedly, without results. Abd al-Azim al-Haimi, a staff general of the CSF, testified that he called the CSF commander directly:

I informed Major General Abd al-Malik Tayeb, commander of the Central Security, that there was gunfire and civilians being killed and injured, and he asked, “Where are you, exactly?” I told him I was in City Mart [near the wall]. He said, “Okay,” and he ended the call.[135]

Residents living near the wall also contacted the security forces once the shooting began. A CSF colonel arrived but with no backup forces, according to residentWalid Hussein Hassan al-Nimri, who is a defendant in the case:  

We contacted Central Security to request protection and anti-riot police; they responded by telling us that Central Security Forces are on their way to the area.  A colonel in a Central Security uniform arrived on an expensive white motorcycle with a police license plate. We asked him, “Where are the Central Security Forces?” He said, “They are on their way.”  He remained on the phone.  They did not arrive until a half-hour after shooting started.”[136]

The dozens of CSF anti-riot police who finally arrived were armed only with batons, tear gas and water cannons.[137] “They sent two truckloads of new troops without weapons. They were simple soldiers,” Muhammad Hizam al-Radai, a lieutenant colonel in CSF, told prosecutors.[138]

No Action to Stop Shooters

Once they arrived, the CSF contingents took no action against the shooters and in some cases even shielded them as they continued to fire at the protesters.

“Karama Has No Walls,” a documentary about the Friday of Dignity attack, shows a line of CSF anti-riot police blocking Ring Road amid the sound of gunfire. The CSF members are shown spraying protesters with water cannons, while making no attempt to disarm or apprehend a group of gunmen standing close by in a doorway.[139]

Witness statements corroborate the video footage:

“I saw two gunmen shoot and then retreat through the line of security forces,” said rights activist al-Faqih.  “There were about 30 to 40 Central Security Force members. They were just standing there with the gunmen nearby.”[140]

Salim al-Aulaqi told Human Rights Watch that he recalled seeing “tens of Central Security forces mixed in with the balatija.”[141]

Yasir Muhammad Muqbil Esa, a wounded protester, testified that:

There were militants in plainclothes firing at us from the vicinity of the Central Security Forces and when we approached them the soldiers made a security belt around them. … They were pointing to the plainclothes militants to come back and fire at us.[142]

Some witnesses said they thought the liquid fired from the water cannon was wastewater.  “It must have been sewage water or something,” said Yusef Muhammad Mohsen, a 19-year-old protester.  “It smelled very bad.”[143] 

Protesters responded by again throwing stones, this time at security forces. Jabir Saad Ali Jabir al-Mandaliq, an unemployed teacher, told Human Rights Watch:

There were security forces on one side of the street and balatija on the other. We started throwing stones at the security forces because they were acting like shields for the killers.[144]

Even as they fired water cannon, security forces made no effort to create an exit to disperse the protesters, as required under Yemen’s law on demonstrations. Many other walls that had been built in the area remained intact and armed men were blocking many side streets, effectively trapping the protesters in a corridor of Ring Road, between the security forces to the south and the tightly-packed mass of thousands of additional protesters that stretched to the center of Change Square to the north.

Hours after the shooting ended, at least seven or eight armed men remained in plain site near the area of the attack, but no security forces were present, reporter Kasinof, who returned the scene at that time, told Human Rights Watch.[145]

Poor Response of Regular Police

The General Security forces, which serve as the regular police and had a precinct house just two blocks south of the wall, also failed to respond to the attack.

Defendant Muhammad Badr, a resident of the area near the wall, testified that the night before the attack, he had warned Ahmad al-Tahiri, the deputy manager of General Security for western Sanaa, that “the situation would require anti-riot forces, but they didn’t take any action.”[146]

When the attack began, Badr said, he “repeatedly called” al-Tahiri to “send more forces.” Rather than send police to the scene, al-Tahiri ordered Badr to come to see him and, in the presence of several plainclothes officers, asked if he knew the identities of the masked gunmen, Badr said. [147]

Badr said he also contacted Muhammad Rifaat, an assistant director of General Security. He said Rifaat replied that the residents should fend for themselves:

I told him [Rifaat], “The gunfire is increasing, so why don’t you send any support?” He said, “We know. And nothing will happen to you. Just take care of your neighborhood.”[148]

Some witnesses said that even the few General Security officers in the area failed to intervene. “We ran to police and told them that there were balatija shooting at us,” protester Ahmad Ahmad told journalist Jeb Boone, who was at the scene. “They told us it wasn't their duty to stop them.”[149]

Shaiban, the PSO officer, testified that he saw three security force officers whom he knew at the scene of the attack as the incident began. But, he said, as soon as they saw protesters with rocks heading in their direction, “the security men ran away.”[150]

When prosecutors asked then-General Security Chief Hanash why he did not dispatch his own forces, he replied that Interior Minister al-Masri had told him that security in that area was “under the jurisdiction of the Central Security.”[151]

“We do not have the means to protect this area,” Hanash testified, and “we have no authority to enter it.”[152]

Central Security Chief Denies Wrongdoing

In an interview with Human Rights Watch, Brigadier General Saleh,  at that time the CSF chief and a nephew of then-President Saleh, said that he sent in forces “as soon as we learned about the clashes” but that they were out-armed. He also accused the protesters of shooting live ammunition:

There was no failure here. … The Central Security Forces were doing everything they could do stop the fighting. But when they saw the protesters shooting as well as the [gunmen on the] other side [of the wall], they realized they were the only party without guns and they withdrew.

How can unarmed forces stop gunmen? They had only batons… and water cannon.[153]

He did not explain why he did not send in reinforcements who were better trained or better armed.