Forced disappearance and torture of dozens of Yemenis in Houthi prisons… Why?

Dozens of activists from the old city of Ibb have been languishing in Houthi intelligence prisons for weeks. They were arrested during the anti-coup demonstrations that took place at the funeral of activist Hamdi Mkahel who was killed by militias in one of its prisons in the capital of the governorate.

The Mayyun Organization for Human Rights and Development monitored 40 kidnappings of Ibb residents by Houthi militias, following the death of Mkahel months after his arrest. This sparked widespread public outrage after reports of his liquidation due to his sharp criticism of the group’s leader, Abdul-Malik Al-Houthi.

A few weeks after the incident, local sources confirmed to Middle East that Houthi intelligence still hid dozens of young men who were arrested in connection with the demonstration that accompanied Mkahel’s funeral.

According to the sources, all the efforts made by the families of those detainees to allow visits to them have failed, and the Houthi authority refuses to refer them to the judiciary if there are real charges against them. Those sources confirmed that after a month has passed since the arrests campaign, the security grip on the Old City continues, and that intelligence elements are monitoring the young activists among the residents.

It also stressed that according to the information leaked from the detainee, abductees are subjected to various methods of torture to force them to confess to fabricated accusations against them.

According to these sources, the Houthi intelligence released two of the detainees on the second day of Eid Al-Fitr, Ali Rassam and Ahmed Al-Sanaani, after they spent about a month in the Intelligence Agency prison. They were participating in the demonstration that accompanied the funeral and in which thousands of city residents participated.

Abyan is experiencing unprecedented lawlessness, and Houthi leaders are tampering with public property, confiscating large swaths of land, and redistributing it to their followers.

The Brotherhood’s governor effectively withdrew authority from the security and military authorities, and the province is now run by intelligence chiefs, the commander of the military region, and the provincial police chief, all of whom hail from Saada Governorate, which saw the birth of the Houthi group and the beginning of their rebellion against central authority in mid-2004, before they turned against legitimacy in the second half of 2014 when they overran the capital Sana’a.

The Association of Mothers of Kidnapped Yemenis revealed that Houthi terrorist militias have extensively tortured dozens of hostages in their security and intelligence prisons in Sanaa.

The rights group said in a statement that Houthi militias have disappeared at least 10 abductees since the beginning of Ramadan, and no one knows their fate until today.

It also revealed the intense and horrific torture inflicted on 60 other abductees in the same prison, “Security and Intelligence”, on the occasion of Ramadan. This includes overcrowding them in one room and stripping them of everything except prison uniforms.