The suppression of the “hands of good” … The brothers of Yemen are violating the sanctity of Ramadan

The sanctity of the month of Ramadan has not prevented the Yemeni Brothers from halting the humanitarian violations, which were intended to suppress the “good hands” and attack the volunteers for the fast breaking.

A frantic Brotherhood campaign targeted a number of volunteers as they distributed a charity project to break the fast in Shabwa province, southern Yemen, on the second day of the holy month.

Human rights sources told Al-Ain News that two Brotherhood patrols carrying armed elements attacked a relief committee of the Southern Transitional Council and prevented them from carrying out the “Iftar of the Fasting” project, before resorting to kidnapping workers and volunteers in Ataq, the capital of Shabwa, which is under the influence of the terrorist organization in Yemen.

The kidnappers included Ahmed Al-Hakal, director of the human rights department in the Shabwa Transition Command, and others who were volunteers targeting patients, travelers and the needy on the streets of Ataq, she said.

She said Brotherhood members detained the volunteers and interrogated them for more than 8 hours in a building near the power station in Ataq before seizing their phones, taking pledges not to carry out charity activities and releasing them under official and popular pressure.

The project targeted patients at isolation centers, hospitals, some needy families and International Line travelers with 1000 iftar meals and 1000 dinners as part of a campaign carried out by a humanitarian committee for transition in all southern Yemeni provinces.

The Brotherhood’s crime came during Ramadan to violate the sanctity of the fasting month, during which Muslims have always breathed more goodness than breaking the fast and relieving the poor and needy in order to earn a salary.

The attack and kidnapping of the volunteers were condemned by human rights activists, politicians and the public, who said they were a systematic targeting of “the hands of good”.

In a statement, of which Al-Ain Al-Ikhbariya received a copy, the Transitional Council in Shabwa expressed regret at what it described as a “police escalation” by Brotherhood militias to disrupt Al-Khair’s activities.

The statement said the attack on the relief committee and volunteers is “a new confirmation of the nature of the Brotherhood’s rule, for which Shabwa is a hostage. This entails the need to put an end to the arrogance of these militias and their various acts of aggression”.

“The Brotherhood’s escalation in Ramadan is contrary to the values and teachings of our true Islamic religion and proves the identity of the ruling militia, which does not accept others and violates the conventions, foremost of which is the Riyadh Agreement,” he said.

Ahmed Al-Hakal, director of the Human Rights Department in the Transitional Council in Shabwa, said he was “surprised, along with the volunteers, to see security patrols of the Brotherhood, which without prior warning tore up the charity project’s signs and arrested them inappropriately, as if we were criminals who carried out serious crimes or were terrorists belonging to terrorist organizations”.

They also “forcibly dragged us on patrols as war criminals and did not take into account the crowds of those fasting and the sanctity of humanitarian work,” Al-Hail said in a statement posted on his Facebook account by Al-Ain News.

The Yemeni leader, a member of the government’s Emergency Relief Committee, said what happened to them was “an act against humanity and against the partnership of the Riyadh Agreement, which is supported regionally and internationally”.

He said he and the volunteers underwent lengthy interrogation sessions and were released after pledging to prevent any charity activities and threatening them with arrest and enforced disappearance as soon as any humanitarian action for the transition was carried out, including targeting patients and needy families.

British organization Frontline documented more than 787 arrests of Brotherhood authorities in Shabwa governorate between August 2019 and March 2021.