Houthis Escalate Targeting of Religious Institutions: Abduction of Imams and Closure of Quranic Centers

The Houthi militia has escalated its violations against moderate religious figures and institutions in Yemen by abducting a prominent cleric from Al-Bayda governorate and forcibly shutting down a Quran memorization center in Ibb governorate, as part of a systematic campaign targeting the country’s religious and social fabric.

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According to Yemen’s official news agency Saba, armed Houthi militants stormed the home of Sheikh Ahmad Hussein Al-Wahashi, imam of the Al-Sunna mosque and Quran teacher in the Madhuqin area, east of Al-Bayda, and took him to an undisclosed location. This incident came just days after the siege and shelling of Sheikh Saleh Hantous’s home in Raymah governorate, resulting in his death after he allegedly defied the militia’s orders to halt Quranic instruction.

In neighboring Ibb governorate, Houthi members raided the Taj Al-Waqar Quran memorization center in the village of Al-Lakmah, in the Al-Makhadir district, and shut it down by force, threatening those in charge with severe consequences if they reopened it or continued teaching students. The move sparked widespread outrage among local residents.

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The Yemeni Network for Rights and Freedoms described these acts as a “dangerous escalation” in an ongoing campaign targeting mosque imams and Quran teachers in areas under Houthi control. The network noted that these crimes are part of a systematic plan to erase Yemen’s moderate religious identity and replace it with a sectarian discourse that serves the group’s ideology.

Meanwhile, the Mosaawah Organization for Rights and Freedoms issued a strongly worded statement warning of the threat these actions pose to the cohesion of Yemeni society. It stressed that targeting Quranic centers and teachers undermines the unity of the country’s religious fabric and violates both the Yemeni Constitution and international humanitarian law.

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The organization emphasized that these measures reflect the Houthis’ insistence on placing educational and religious institutions under strict surveillance and imposing their sectarian agendas by force, in clear defiance of the principles of religious freedom and intellectual pluralism in Yemen.

These violations are occurring amid troubling international silence, despite repeated human rights warnings about the expanding Houthi crackdown on civil institutions—raising serious concerns about the future of religious and social stability in a country enduring more than nine years of war.

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