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III. Enforced Disappearances

The sporadic four-year-old armed conflict between Huthi rebels and government forces in Sa’da governorate has further weakened the already tenuous rule of law in Yemen.

The writ of the law is weak even in peaceful times in Yemen’s tribal areas, where tribal custom of settling scores and arbitration sometimes prevails. Tribal chiefs are known to have operated their own prisons. Taking foreign travelers or locals hostage still occurs regularly.

In the context of its war against the Huthi rebels, the government has now, too, arbitrarily arrested innocent civilians, even taking family members as hostages for wanted individuals. Unlike private citizens, the government commands regular law enforcement personnel and operates official detention facilities.

It is therefore all the more disturbing that in nearly all of the 62 cases of arrest Human Rights Watch documented, security officials did not identify themselves as agents of the state, or specify to which agency they belonged. Moreover, they did not inform the detainee, or his family, why they had arrested him or where they were holding him. Families of detainees often did not know for months where their relatives were being held. In eight cases documented in this report, the authorities “disappeared” suspects, most of whom eventually re-appeared at the Political Security or National Security agencies after weeks or months.

Under international law, a government’s refusal to acknowledge the detention of an individual or their whereabouts is an enforced disappearance. Many of those “disappeared” in Yemen have eventually been released or their whereabouts reported. But the families of some persons forcibly disappeared still do not know whether their loved ones are alive or not, who their captors are, or their whereabouts.

Political Security emerged as the most likely government body responsible for enforced disappearances because it appears to be holding the largest number of detainees. Detainees among those whose cases Human Rights Watch documented re-appeared in its detention facilities, most often in San’a, after having been disappeared for weeks or months. In at least three of these cases, National Security appeared to have carried out the initial arrest and detention before transferring the detainees to Political Security.

Legal standards

The UN Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances, proclaimed by the General Assembly in 1992, states that an enforced disappearance has occurred when government officials or agents arrest, detain or abduct against their will an individual “followed by a refusal to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the persons concerned or a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of their liberty, which places such persons outside the protection of the law.”¹⁵

Although a non-binding standard, the declaration reflects the consensus of the international community against this human rights violation and provides authoritative guidance for safeguards to prevent it. Enforced disappearances constitute “a multiple human rights violation.”¹⁶ The declaration recognizes the practice of “disappearance” as a violation of the rights to due process, to liberty and security of a person, and to freedom from torture. It also contains a number of provisions aimed at preventing “disappearances,” stipulating that detainees must be held in officially recognized places of detention, of which their families must be promptly informed; that they must have access to a lawyer; and that each detention facility must maintain an official up-to-date register of all persons deprived of their liberty.¹⁷

The declaration makes clear that armed conflicts, whether international or internal, can never justify the practice of enforced disappearances: “No circumstances whatsoever, whether a threat of war, a state of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked to justify enforced disappearances.”¹⁸

In 2006 the prohibition against enforced disappearances was strengthened by the adoption of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (Convention against Enforced Disappearance). This multinational treaty was opened for signature in February 2007, and at the time of writing, 73 countries had signed the convention and four had ratified it. Yemen has not signed the Convention.¹⁹

The Convention against Enforced Disappearance calls on states to investigate abductions and other acts that fall into the definition of a “disappearance” committed by non-state actors and to bring those responsible to justice.²⁰ International law considers a “disappearance” to be a continuing offense so long as the state continues to conceal the fate or the whereabouts of the “disappeared” person.²¹ When “disappearances” are committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack on a population, they constitute a crime against humanity, recognized under the Convention against Enforced Disappearances and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.²²

Yemen’s constitution prohibits detention “in any place not authorized under the Prisons Administration law.”²³ In 1998, Yemen passed a Law on Abductions, which sets penalties in excess of 20 years for officials who are found guilty of participating in an abduction or robbery.²⁴ However, Yemen presently has no law that specifically criminalizes enforced disappearances.

Cases of enforced disappearance

Security forces in Yemen have carried out enforced disappearances over the past two years both of a targeted nature and apparently at random. Security officers have arrested wanted individuals on the street and from their homes, but have also arrested persons at checkpoints based on suspicions regarding their names or provenance.

Security agencies–including Political Security, National Security, and the regular police–have failed to acknowledge some detainee’s whereabouts, effectively disappearing them.

The wife of one detainee told Human Rights Watch:

On June 5, 2008, Yasir al-Wazir went out to pray at 11 a.m. I don’t know to which mosque he went. By 2 p.m. he had not come back. Usually he would have called if he had stayed out with friends. I called his phone but it was switched off. The next thing we knew was that an internet site, Majalis Al Muhammad, announced that Yasir had been arrested.

His father then went to the local police. There, the officer asked him, “how does your son pray, with his arms by his side [in the fashion of Shi’a Muslims], or with his arms crossed [in the fashion of Sunni Muslims]?” His father replied that Yasir is a Zaidi Muslim and a preacher in a Zaidi mosque. The officer said, “Aha, then I think I know where he is. Go to Political Security.”²⁵

As of July 23, 2008, when Human Rights Watch spoke with his wife, the family had still not yet received any official acknowledgement, from Political Security or any other government body, regarding where Yasir’s captors were detaining him.²⁶ However, a family member informed Human Rights Watch that the family was finally able to visit Yasir in detention at Political Security on August 6, 2008.²⁷

Many of those subjected to forced disappearance in Yemen eventually resurface in custody or are simply released. However, “disappearances” do not have to be prolonged in order to cause a family great mental anguish. Not knowing who is responsible for an arrest, or where a loved one is being held puts a heavy emotional strain the “disappeared” person’s friends and relatives of a disappeared person.

The brother of a person arrested on July 21, 2008 and since disappeared was visibly stressed when he told Human Rights Watch two days later that “We have not had word where he is or why he has been arrested.”²⁸ He said that several persons dressed in military uniforms and driving a military vehicle on July 21 apprehended Yahya from the “Peugeot” shared taxi station, where Yahya worked as a driver. After fellow taxi drivers informed Yahya’s family of the event, the shaikh of Yahya’s home town in a Zaidi area, around one and a half hour’s drive outside San’a, sent people to inquire at the security agencies. Yahya’s family told Human Rights Watch:

Political Security said, ‘He is not here,’ the Criminal Investigation Department said, ‘He is not here,’ and National Security said, ‘We do not have a prison,’ although we know they detain people. We don’t know where else to go.²⁹

An enforced disappearance continues as a crime until the fate or whereabouts of the person become known. Long-term “disappearances” increase a family’s anguish. Hisham told Human Rights Watch of the case of Hamza Hajar. Hisham, who is from the same region as Hamza, said that: “Hamza disappeared on the Sa’da–San’a road during the fourth war (February 27 to June 14, 2007). Some say that he is in Political Security’s prison in Hudaida, but nobody knows for sure. He was a student at the health institute and wanted to transfer to Sa’da.”³⁰ The Yemeni Organization for the Defense of Democratic Rights and Freedoms (YODDRF) issued a Register Containing Some Missing Persons, listing 286 names. It lists Hamza Abdullah Hajar as “missing” at “Qahrat al-Hajar” on the “Day of the Advance.”³¹ Another YODDRF lists 56 persons as having been “disappeared” between May and June 2008 and whose whereabouts remained unknown in July.³²

Prior to his “disappearance” in 2008, Muhammad Miftah had already been arrested twice by the authorities since 2004 for his Zaidi religious teaching and public criticism of the government. His wife told Human Rights Watch what happened during his third arrest on May 21, 2008:

Fifteen men wearing black clothing with faces half covered blocked his car with their two cars, got out, and started shooting at our car. That was the last anyone has seen of my husband. The children [in the car with him] miraculously escaped injury, but we don’t know if Muhammad was injured. I have been to Political Security 13 times since then. Seven times they said they are holding him, and six times they said they are not. The director told me he was there, but added: “Don’t ask us to release him because only the president can release him. So go to the president.”³³

Miftah’s son, who was in the car at the time, confirmed this account.³⁴ On August 13, Miftah’s family was finally able to visit him briefly at Political Security for the first time. He said he had been detained at Political Security since his arrest.³⁵ On September 7, the authorities released Muhammad Miftah, apparently in a gesture to reduce the number of political detainees.³⁶

In some cases, detainees are forcibly disappeared even after security agencies initially acknowledged that they are holding the person. On June 30, 2008, persons wearing military uniform and driving in a military vehicle entrapped and arrested 23-year-old Lu’ai Mu’ayyad (see below). Family members received a phone call from a man identifying himself only as an officer, and instructing them to bring Lu’ai’s medicine to a meeting place in an ordinary street. The next day, Lu’ai rang his family from prison on his cell phone to say he was all right, but could not specify where he was. Since then, the family has not received news about his whereabouts, and was unable to deliver medicine to him. Lu’ai suffers from Hepatitis B, and a doctor in Jordan conducts blood tests every three months and adjusts his medication accordingly. The doctor sends the medication via express mail to the family in Yemen.³⁷ Lu’ai was released on September 11, 2008.

When US citizen Khalid al-Sharif did not return home after going shopping on the morning of June 16, 2008 in San’a, his mother told Human Rights Watch that she began to worry. At 8 p.m. she received a telephone call from a man calling himself Majid al-Mu’ayyad, who said that Khalid had been arrested. Al-Mu’ayyad did not identify himself or specify where he received this information. On the morning of June 17, five persons, two in uniform and three in civilian dress, including one woman, came to search Khalid’s house, saying “we are the security forces.” They refused to say where Khalid was, and his family had not heard from him since.³⁸ On August 13, his mother was able to visit Khalid briefly in the prison of Political Security. He told her he had been detained at National Security until his transfer there two weeks earlier.³⁹ Khalid remained detained as of September 25, 2008.

In another case, a detainee vanished after being held in two police stations. Amina told Human Rights Watch that her cousin Husain had gone to Bani Hushaish in late May to see his family following recent fighting there. Soldiers denied him passage at roadblocks, so he returned to San’a to stay with her. After one week, officers from the local police station summoned and detained him. Thirteen days later, officers at the local police station told her family that authorities had transferred Husain to the Bani Hushaish police station. Husain’s mother was able to visit him there once, after two weeks. After that, the mother received no further information about Husain’s whereabouts. “Now, we don’t know where Husain is,” Amina said.⁴⁰

Hasan Zaid, a mediator between Huthi rebels and the government, told Human Rights Watch that “between the third and fourth war (February 2006 to February 2007), around 350 persons were missing–either disappeared, arrested, or presumed dead.”⁴¹ Since then, little or no progress has been made to clarify their fate. Instead, government agents or unknown persons have continued to carry out enforced disappearances.

Ismail Ghanmiya (sic, see below) is number 24 on the YODDRF’s list of 56 persons disappeared in 2008 , described as “arrested instead of his cousin on June 4, 2008.”⁴² Journalist Nabil Subai’ told Human Rights Watch that he knew that Isma’il Ghanima was arrested in June and kept in San’a for 15 days, after he had transported internally displaced persons from the village of Bait al-Aghrabi, close to Bani Hushaish, where fighting had recently taken place. Nearly two months later, “nobody knows what happened to him.”⁴³