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IV. Arbitrary Arrest and Detention

Enforced disappearances, even when only temporary, are taking place within a context of hundreds, if not thousands, of arbitrary arrests and detentions. In August, officials spoke of 1,200 political detainees remaining in jail, while announcing the release of 70 Sa’da residents being held as prisoners of war.⁴⁴ On On August 31, President Saleh ordered the release of 131 detainees arrested in the context of the Sa’da war.⁴⁵ In early September, the government promised the release of 120 more political detainees, some in relation to the Sa’da conflict. On September 24, a credible NGO reported that at least 63 persons remained arbitrarily detained as a result of the Sa’da conflict.⁴⁶ Human Rights Watch has not managed to establish the accuracy of this figure.

Among those released in August are former mediation committee member Shaikh Salih Al Wajman, who had been jailed at the Interior Ministry for two years, and Shaikh Naji Bukhtan and dozens of other detained Huthi loyalists. ⁴⁷

Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qurbi, in a meeting with Human Rights Watch, acknowledged human rights abuses in the administration of justice. “Political Security may hold detainees longer than they should [under the law],” he said, owing to “negligence, and because they are overwhelmed with cases right now.”⁴⁸ A Yemeni judge was more critical, saying, “Our problem is that justice is not working. All arrests are politicized and the course of justice is blocked.”⁴⁹ Minister for Human Rights Huda Alban avoided a question on the legality of detention, but said that she “went to the Central Prison a while ago. There were Huthis there, and they were in very good condition, with TV and good food, better than other prisoners.”⁵⁰

Among those detained in violation of international law were persons effectively taken hostage–arrested to pressure a wanted family member to surrender to the security forces or cease their human rights work. Hashemite adherents of Zaidi Shi’ism make up a second category of persons arbitrarily arrested. While there is no clear indication that the security forces target Hashemites merely for their religious affiliation, there are a sufficient number of cases to indicate that security forces arrest those active in religious study or instruction. Third, security forces also arrest Zaidis going to or returning from areas of recent fighting or otherwise suspected of sympathizing with the Huthis.

Legal standards

International law prohibits arbitrary arrest and detention. According to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions, detention is arbitrary if the authorities provide no valid legal basis justifying the deprivation of liberty; the deprivation of liberty results from the exercise of protected rights or freedoms such as the freedom of belief or of expression; or when violations of international fair trial norms are so grave as to give the deprivation of liberty an arbitrary character.⁵¹

Yemen has been a party to the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) since 1987. Article 9 of the ICCPR on arbitrary arrest and detention states that “[n]o one shall be deprived of his liberty except on such grounds and in accordance with such procedure as are established by law.” Those arrested shall be informed at the time of arrest of the reasons for their arrest and shall be promptly informed of any charges against them. Persons charged with a criminal offense “shall be brought promptly before a judge or other officer authorized by law to exercise judicial power and shall be entitled to trial within a reasonable time or to release.”⁵²

The UN Human Rights Committee, which monitors state compliance with the ICCPR and provides authoritative interpretation of the Covenant, has explained that: “’arbitrariness’ is not to be equated with ‘against the law,’ but must be interpreted more broadly to include elements of inappropriateness, injustice, lack of predictability and due process of law.”⁵³

Yemen’s constitution provides that “[t]he State guarantees citizens’ security, liberty and dignity.”⁵⁴ It prohibits arrests, searches and detentions other than those of a person caught in flagrante delicto or pursuant to a judge or a public prosecutor’s order.⁵⁵ The constitution, which contains basic elements of criminal justice procedure, further specifies that the public prosecutor must charge anyone arrested with a crime within 24 hours, and that only a judge may prolong an order of detention beyond an initial seven days.⁵⁶ Yemen’s Penal Code stipulates a prison sentence of up to five years for officials who wrongfully deprive persons of their liberty.⁵⁷

Arrests of family members of wanted individuals

Human Rights Watch received 11 allegations of hostage-taking by government security forces in the context of the government’s conflict with the Huthi rebels. Yemeni security forces in the past have taken persons hostage and held them without charge in order to pressure their relatives to surrender to the authorities or to cease their political or other activities.⁵⁸

Hostage-taking is defined under the International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages as the seizure or detention of a person (the hostage), combined with a threat to kill, injure or continue to detain, in order to compel a third party to do some act (or refrain from acting) as a condition for the hostage’s release.⁵⁹ Hostage-taking is not specifically prohibited by international human rights law. The practice is however prohibited as an arbitrary deprivation of liberty under the ICCPR.⁶⁰ The Human Rights Committee, in its general comment on states of emergency, stated that states may “in no circumstances” invoke a state of emergency “as justification for acting in violation of humanitarian law or peremptory norms of international law, for instance by taking hostages [or] by imposing collective punishments.”⁶¹ Hostage-taking is also specifically prohibited under common article 3 to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, which is applicable during non-international armed conflicts.⁶² Under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, it is a war crime during armed conflicts.⁶³   

Security forces arrested Isma’il Ghanima, whose whereabouts since his arrest are not known (see above), in an apparent attempt to force another family member to surrender. Isma’il’s brother Raja told Human Rights Watch that his family received communications that Isma’il’s captors “would detain Isma’il until his uncle turns himself in.”⁶⁴ His uncle turned himself in three days later and remains detained, but Isma’il has not been freed and his family says “we don’t know where Isma’il is, either.”⁶⁵

Jamila told Human Rights Watch that she fled fighting in Sa’da via Jawf and Ma’rib to San’a during the most recent round of fighting (May 4 to July 17, 2008). She said that National Security officials arrested her relative Taha al-Hamrani, a student, on June 8, 2008 as he was sitting for an examination in San’a, and Taha’s father on June 11, “because someone with the same family name is wanted on suspicion of fighting with the Huthis. They called the family after they arrested Taha to say his father would be next.”⁶⁶

In a hamlet about one and a half hours outside San’a, ‘Amir told Human Rights Watch that on July 17 unknown persons apprehended his relative, from the Qahum family, because the Qahum name raised suspicion at a checkpoint. Several persons of that family were wanted.⁶⁷ Back in San’a, two persons displaced from Sa’da and two persons knowledgeable about arrests related to the conflict told Human Rights Watch that on July 28 security forces arrested Muhammad Abdullah Al Qahum in Sa’da and Muhammad Muhsin Al Qahum in San’a because six other persons from the Qahum family were “wanted for involvement with the Huthis.”⁶⁸ The four said they were convinced that the Qahums had been arrested to put pressure on the wanted family members.⁶⁹

Hamid, released from one year’s detention without charge in February 2008, confirmed these types of arrests from his first-hand experience in a Political Security prison. He said those imprisoned with him were there for a variety of reasons, and included Huthi fighters. He also recalled one person whom political security arrested because his brother in Sa’da was wanted. “He was with me the entire time in prison.”⁷⁰

Human Rights Watch spoke to Firas, a Hashemite intellectual who lives in San’a. Firas said that “a few days ago, my brother, who lives in the easternmost part of Sa’da governorate, was arrested because another brother of ours is wanted.” The authorities arrested this brother to force a third brother to give himself up, according to what officers told family members present during the arrest.⁷¹

In four related cases, authorities arrested or threatened a person to pressure a family member to cease his human rights activities. Security forces had already arrested human rights activist Ali al-Dailami in 2006, and before that his brother Yahya al-Dailami in 2004 for their criticism of the government. On May 22, 2008, soldiers arrested the youngest brother, 24-year-old business student Hasan al-Dailami, without alleging any criminal activity on his part. They asked about the activities Ali’s human rights organization, in which Hasan is also occasionally active. Hasan recounted to Human Rights Watch how:

About twenty soldiers surrounded the house and about five men in civilian clothes with six soldiers entered, pointed their guns close at me, my mother and other female relatives. They asked about my brothers Yahya, Ali, Abdullah and Hamza, but they were not there. Then officers from the National Security agency handcuffed me behind my back, blindfolded me, and after 30 minutes took me away in a military vehicle.⁷²

In prison, Hasan said, his interrogator “beat me on my back, and kicked me after that, and said he would hang me. Security men then told me Ali should stop his activities for his own sake,” before releasing him on an abandoned street at 2 a.m. the next day.⁷³ Ali al-Dailami said that Hasan’s arrest “was to intimidate me.”⁷⁴

In the second case, security forces arrested a brother by mistake, then forced him to lure his wanted brother to a location to arrest him, their mother and sister told Human Rights Watch. On June 30, Nazar al-Mu’ayyad, brother of Lu’ai al-Mu’ayyad, whose disappearance is discussed above, was driving to work in San’a when two military vehicles stopped his car. Several men got out, blindfolded him, and accused him of providing help to the Huthis. Only when they looked at his identity card some time later did they realize he was not Lu’ai, whom they sought. The security officers then forced Nazar to call Lu’ai and pretend he needed his help due to a car accident. When Lu’ai arrived, he was arrested, and Nazar freed.⁷⁵

In a third case, Political Security officials detained Zaidi cleric Yahya al-Mahdi without charge at the agency’s prison from February 2007 until March 2008. He described to Human Rights Watch how, one month after his arrest, the authorities detained his 16-year-old son because he had “made public calls in the media for my release.”⁷⁶ Yahya added that an interrogator told him that his son would remain in prison “until the Huthis withdraw from the mountains. You were both arrested as a precaution.”⁷⁷

Arrests of Hashemite religious figures

Hashemites feature frequently among those arrested, although it remains unclear whether the government was targeting them. Human Rights Watch received information about 14 cases where the Hashemite identity or the profession as a Hashemite scholar or preacher of the detainee appeared to be the paramount reason for the arrest.

The Huthi movement is closely identified with the Hashemites. Government officials and politicians have attributed to the Huthis a desire to reestablish the Zaidi imamate.⁷⁸ Furthermore, the origins of the Huthi-led Believing Youth lie in spreading Zaidi religious awareness and identity through itinerant preachers and religious schools mainly staffed by Hashemites in Sa’da and other majority Zaidi governorates in the 1990s.⁷⁹ When the Believing Youth became an armed movement in the early 2000s, Hashemites continued to figure prominently. One person with family ties to Huthi sympathizers estimated that 30 percent of fighting Huthis and the entire military leadership today is Hashemite.⁸⁰

The government for its part has put Sunni preachers into formerly Zaidi mosques and fired Zaidi preachers.⁸¹ Human Rights Watch observed signs on mosques saying “Sunni Mosque” in Zaidi areas outside San’a. Our local guide said that these signs had appeared between 2005 and 2008.⁸² In conflating armed rebels with the religious cause that gave rise to them, the government has arrested Hashemite preachers and scholars in Zaidi religious institutions and mosques. “After the war in Bani Hushaish [in June 2008], checkpoints and identity card checks appeared around the capital, and, if you are Hashemite, you became liable to arrest,” one observer told Human Rights Watch.⁸³ Another noted that “for the government, a Hashemite is a Huthi. If he is not outspoken, he is a quiet Huthi supporter. If he says that he is with the government, he is an untrustworthy opportunist.”⁸⁴

On June 5, 2008, unknown security officers arrested Yasir al-Wazir, a Hashemite Zaidi who preaches at a San’a mosque, from a street in San’a. His wife said he has an official license to preach. Yasir had also been a student, and later a teacher for six years, at the Nahrain mosque in old San’a, one of the most important centers of Zaidi religious learning. Yasir’s mother, asked if he might have had contact with the Huthi rebels, said, “I don’t think so. He spends all his time at home. Also, we are a small family, and he has no uncles or other relatives who could be with the Huthis.”⁸⁵

In September 2004 the government arrested Muhammad Miftah, the prayer leader at San’a’s Great Mosque in Rawda, where Huthi supporters chanted anti-Israel and anti-US slogans after Friday prayers in 2003 and 2004.⁸⁶ A court sentenced Miftah to eight years in prison for supporting the Huthis, but President Saleh commuted his sentence, and he was released on May 21, 2006. As a condition of release, Miftah was prohibited from lecturing in mosques, schools and public fora.

In December 2007, Miftah broke that condition by speaking at an event in Bani Hushaish on the Shi’a religious holiday of Eid al-Ghadir. Authorities promptly arrested and then released him in January 2008. He then joined Al-Haqq party, largely representing Zaidis, and became head of their Shura (Advisory) Council.⁸⁷ Together with the Taghyir [Tagheer] human rights organization, Miftah joined an initiative against the war in Sa’da and documented cases of detention.⁸⁸ Then, on May 21, 2008, according to his wife, and his son who was present, more than one dozen gunmen stopped the car Miftah and his two sons were driving, fired at least 20 bullets into it, and took Miftah with them.⁸⁹ He was not seen or heard from until August 13, 2008, when his family was first able to see him at the Political Security prison (see above). There are no known charges against Miftah.⁹⁰

Another cleric, Yahya al-Mahdi, told Human Rights Watch that Political Security officers came to the Bait al-Mahdi mosque in San’a, where he is the imam, during the evening of February 23, 2007:

There was a driver and four men in civilian clothes, carrying Kalashnikovs [AK-47 assault rifles]. Another car was waiting with three persons in it chewing qat [a widely used stimulant], and someone called my name, gripped me violently and pushed me into the car. He said he was from Political Security. They took me to Prison Ma’in 2. One month later, they started the interrogation, trivial questions, like listing my relatives, my religion, which they insulted, asking me if I was a Twelver [non-Zaidi] Shi’a. Until my release on March 23, 2008, they never called me again. I was in a cell with perhaps 12 Zaidis and two al Qaeda members.⁹¹

Other cases similarly indicate that the government arrests certain persons primarily for their engagement in Zaidi religious learning and teaching and their Hashemite identity. Until his arrest in mid-2007, Zuhair was the office manager for the Badr Center, a Zaidi center of religious learning. Several staff and pupils there had been arrested in previous years. “In my center, I had 1,000 students. Now, only I remain,” Dr. Murtada al-Mahatwari, the center’s director, told Human Rights Watch: “The rest are in prison or have left since 2004.”⁹² In fact, the authorities have targeted the Badr Center for arrests of its students and staff. A muezzin at the center’s mosque had been released from detention just days before Human Rights Watch’s visit. He said he was arrested solely because of his work for the center.⁹³ Hamid had been a student at the Badr Center for four years at the time of his arrest on February 19, 2007. He told Human Rights Watch:

[The interrogators] asked questions about my religion: “Do you celebrate [the Shi’a holiday] Eid al-Ghadir? Do you celebrate [the Shi’a holiday of] ‘Ashura? What is your religion?” Then they asked me whether I recruited students for the Huthis and they gave me a list of 20 names. I only vaguely knew one person. Then they wanted me to give information about Murtada [Mahatwari] and whether he had connections to the Huthis or the Iranian embassy.⁹⁴

On February 28, 2008, the authorities released Hamid pursuant to the February 1 agreement between the Huthis and the government mediated by Qatar.⁹⁵

When the conflict erupted again in May 2008, the arrests resumed. Authorities arrested Jasim, another staff member at the Badr Center, on May 28. Jasim told Human Rights Watch:

The officer from National Security told me I had to prove to him that I was not involved in the war when he arrested me. Later, during interrogation, they wanted to know [what I knew about] Sa’da or Bani Hushaish, how long I had worked at the center, what books I had been typing, because I am the typist. Then he wanted to know what Dr. Murtada does and teaches, and what kind of meetings are held at the center.⁹⁶

Azmi, a father of a Hashemite family, told Human Rights Watch about his two sons, arrested in March 2007 and May 2008 respectively. He said that they were arrested for no reason other than being Hashemite and having attended Zaidi summer camps until the war broke out in 2004, after which they stayed in touch with their religious friends and attended religious lectures. ‘Azmi said he sees his son Turki, age 17, once a month at the Political Security prison, but has not had word of the whereabouts of Fahmi, age 19, since he was arrested in May 2008 from his job at the Ministry of Health by unidentified security officers.⁹⁷

‘Isam, also a Hashemite, was arrested with Turki in May 2007 but he was released in late January 2008, and told Human Rights Watch why he thought he was detained:

I think I was arrested because I was studying five days a week before sundown prayers at the Nahrain mosque, religious studies in the Zaidi tradition. I was interrogated a total of 18 times. They asked about my religious belief, whether I was Hashemite, which mosque or religious center I study in, what I knew of other such centers in Sa’da, Hajja, and San’a, which books I read, and whether I was teaching Shi’a thought, and information about Huthis at Nahrain. Then they asked me whether I was collecting money or medicines for the Huthis, and whether I was the “Huthi Foreign Minister.” Two weeks before I was released I had to sign a statement not to go to Nahrain mosque. I went three times [to the mosque], and each time my family received a phone call.⁹⁸

Others told Human Rights Watch of additional arrests of Hashemites without apparent reason. Hasan Zaid, the mediator who monitors arrests of Zaidis, said, “Recently, the security forces arrested Abd al-Karim Ishaq, who is 84 years old, because he is a Hashemite Zaidi and the keeper of the Hushush mosque.”⁹⁹ A journalist said that the security forces mistakenly arrested Sunni, not Zaidi, Hashemites. “Mu’in al-Mutawakkil is a Sunni in the Islah party, and he was arrested because he has a Hashemite name, in the course of random targeting of Hashemites.”¹⁰⁰ Human Rights Watch heard of three other cases of arbitrary arrests of Hashemite Zaidis, including that of a Hashemite court stenographer whose wife told Human Rights Watch that he was not active in politics.¹⁰¹

Arrests of suspected Huthi sympathizers

Another group of persons arrested in the context of the conflict are those whom the government suspects of having contact with Huthis or of sympathizing with the rebels. Persons fleeing from or returning to a conflict zone may arouse suspicions the authorities deem sufficient for an arrest. The specific reasons for arbitrary arrests of Hashemites are less clear, though almost all those arrested are Zaidi. The number of those arrested as sympathizers is possibly the largest group of arbitrary arrests.

One Hashemite intellectual with ties to negotiators told Human Rights Watch that an exchange of prisoners between the Huthi rebels and the San’a government was part of a verbal truce mediated by the government of Qatar ending the fourth war in June 2007. The government did release some detainees, he said, “but the Huthis objected that those released were not Huthi fighters but other Zaidis unrelated to them and arbitrarily arrested. The Huthis wanted their fighters to be freed in order to free the government soldiers.”¹⁰² A member of the Socialist Party agreed: “Hundreds have been arrested in Sa’da governorate only because of their geographic origin. Some were released after the fourth war, but not all.”¹⁰³ A prominent mediator further corroborated this account, saying, “March [2008] was the deadline for the release of the Huthis imprisoned by the government, but this did not happen. They only let 60 detainees go out of 3,000 imprisoned. The deal failed.”¹⁰⁴

Three separate groups of internally displaced persons from Sa’da governorate declined to meet with Human Rights Watch, saying they feared for their own safety because the government was arresting displaced persons and others divulging information. One human rights worker said that in mid-June 2008 “15 persons were arrested from Bani Hushaish, simply for being from there.”¹⁰⁵

Walid, a resident who had fled fighting in Harf Sufyan in the most recent fighting told Human Rights Watch that “since 2004, there has been pressure by the military on Harf residents. They broke into houses, scared children, and arrested fathers and young men.”¹⁰⁶ After Walid returned to Harf Sufyan and cooperated with the soldiers occupying his house there, he said he had “received personal threats from Political Security,” which did not like his engagement for returning displaced persons.¹⁰⁷

Even brief visits to the conflict zone can lead to arrests. After Ghalib drove from San’a to Bani Hushaish to evacuate family members from the conflict zone, he came under surveillance, his sister Amina reported:

Five days after he returned, they arrested him. The local chief of our street summoned Ghalib after work and they went to the local police station. The police questioned him: “Who are the people you took from Bani Hushaish?” The police detained him at the station for one month, and then transferred him to Political Security.¹⁰⁸

Amina told a similar story of Husain, whose enforced disappearance following an attempted trip to Bani Hushaish to visit relatives is discussed above. One week after soldiers turned him back from a checkpoint, he was arrested. His whereabouts are currently unknown.¹⁰⁹ Soldiers in mid-July 2008 arrested Husain’s uncle, ‘Issa, from his house in Bani Hushaish. ‘Issa had been mentally deranged since undergoing an operation five years ago and had refused to leave his house during fighting, Amina said. His family does not know his whereabouts.¹¹⁰

Two persons independently told Human Rights Watch about the recent arrests of up to 16 students at the University of San’a. The reasons for the arrests, human rights activist Ali al-Dailami said, were that the students had all transferred from Sa’da university to San’a, and a local shaikh had reported them to the authorities in exchange for money.¹¹¹ Hasan Zaid, the mediator, added that the authorities had mistaken all arrested students as Zaidis due to their last names, but that some of them had changed their religious outlook to that of the Sunni Muslim Brothers.¹¹²

Another case underlines that security forces arrest persons on suspicion of Huthi sympathies, based merely on geographical origin. ‘Aisha had recently fled Dhahyan, the “city of religious knowledge and scholars,” which witnessed heavy fighting in mid-May 2008. She told Human Rights Watch:

The men of our family stay inside in San’a. They are afraid they could be arrested anytime because they are from Dhahyan. My cousin was arrested two days ago and has not yet been released. He came from Sa’da where he is a student. He is not active in politics. My other cousin Yusif was arrested three months ago.¹¹³

The politics of the Huthi-government conflict have reached beyond the people living in or fleeing the affected areas. The Yemeni government has in the past accused Iran of providing the Huthi rebels with religious rhetoric, and financial and political support.¹¹⁴ (A former member of government with access to the president and cabinet-level documentation during the first wars said the government was never able to prove Iranian governmental support for the Huthis.)¹¹⁵ Days after President Saleh had declared an end to hostilities, Foreign Minister al-Qurbi did not want to repeat accusations against Iran, telling Human Rights Watch, “Now is not the time to dwell on foreign interference. We have said what we said about Iran.”¹¹⁶

Now persons with religious, political, or travel connections to Iran appear to be at heightened risk of arrest on suspicion of supporting the Huthis. In late June 2008, a Yemeni working in Kuwait was arrested in Yemen during his vacation because he had an Iranian stamp in his passport from accompanying his Kuwaiti sponsor on a trip to Iran.¹¹⁷ In 2006, a Yemeni woman working for the Swedish Radda Barnen (Save the Children) humanitarian organization, was arrested and held for three hours as she got out of her car by her office, which is close to the Iranian embassy.¹¹⁸ Members of the Khuja family, living in the southern city of Aden but of Iranian origin, were arrested in June or July on charges of being Twelvers, the Shi’a sect dominant in Iran.¹¹⁹