On February 3, 2010, journalist Muhammad Al-Maqaleh, a member of the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP) and Editor-in-chief of the Internet website Al-Ichtiraki, who had been abducted on September 17, 2009 in Sanaa by men belonging to the national security agency and detained incommunicado for 100 days in an unknown location, reappeared in public before a prosecutor of the Specialised Criminal Court (SCC) in Sanaa, at the occasion of the first session of the investigation opened against him. According to our information, he has not been charged yet. Mr. Al-Maqaleh had written and published articles denouncing the killings by the army of civilians during the Saada war. During the first investigation session on February, 3, 2010, Mr. Al-Maqaleh refused to answer any question demanding first his release and second an investigation about his abduction and disappearance. He complained that during that time he had suffered torture and was denied food during several days. As a result, he suffers serious deterioration of his health condition and has never been provided medical care. As of today, Mr. Al-Maqaleh is still detained in the Intelligence Political Security Prison and has not been able to meet his family since the day of his abduction.
On January 17, 2010, journalist Yasser Al-Wazir, a member of the Yemeni Organisation for the Defence of Rights and Democratic Freedoms (YODRFD), was sentenced to eight years in prison by the SCC in Sanaa on charge of forming an armed group. Mr. Al-Wazir has already been detained for 18 months by the political police and his whereabouts had remained unknown for more than three months. Two months ago, the authorities referred him to trial on trumped-up charges, including charges of forming an armed group, although Mr. Al-Wazir was never questioned about this accusation. His trial was conducted in semi-secret conditions, in closed sessions, and Mr. Al-Wazir was not informed about the trial dates. His attorney did not attend the trial. Mr. Al-Wazir has also been denied family visits and it is believed that he was tortured while in detention.
The Observatory denounces Messrs. Muhammad Al-Maqaleh and Yasser Al-Wazir’s arbitrary detentions and judicial harassment, and believes that the national security is used as a pretext to silence and punish them as well as all human rights defenders for their monitoring activities.
Indeed, this crackdown against journalists and human rights activists takes place in the context of the intensification of the fight by Yemeni authorities of what they name “crimes to national security”. Indeed, in addition to a perceived terrorist threat, the Yemeni Government currently faces two internal political crises that erupted respectively in 2004 and 2007: the Saada war in the North emerged in 2004 and opposes the national army with a group calling itself “The believing youth”[1], and mass protests in the south since 2007.
In this context, suspects of terrorist offences and suspect of “crimes against national security” are being prosecuted by the SCC, a court of exception created on December 1998 as part of the anti-terror campaign. The Specialised Criminal Court is a State security court whose constitutionality is questionable. Defendants in this court are not given the procedural and legal rights that guarantee due process and a fair trial. However, the vague concept of “crimes against national security” also permits the prosecution of human rights activists and journalists denouncing human rights violations perpetrating in the context of Saada war and is used by the authorities to proceed to arbitrary arrests, detentions and to limit the freedom of the press.
Accordingly, the Observatory calls upon the Yemeni authorities to release immediately Messrs. Muhammad Al-Maqaleh and Yasser Al-Wazir, to guarantee in all circumstances their physical and psychological integrity, order a thorough and impartial investigation into the allegations of abduction and torture in order to identify all those responsible, bring them before a civil competent and impartial tribunal and apply to them the penal sanctions provided by the law; as well as to put an end to all acts of harassment against human rights defenders, in conformity with the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as international human rights instruments ratified by Yemen.
For further information, please contact:
· FIDH: Karine Appy / Gael Grilhot, + 33 1 43 55 14 12
· OMCT: Delphine Reculeau, + 41 22 809 49 39
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