Civilian detainees have been subjected to the worst forms of torture and forced disappearance by the authorities of the “Hotels” government
Um Abdullah:
They took my son, the car, the Janbiya, and his possessions just because they found on his phone a picture of him with “Abu Ali Al-Hakim”.
Detainees Al-Jashmi and Al-Hayi:
They are being threatened in their wives and daughters and forced to confess to terrorism.
Dr. Bushra:
My sister was lured into a vaccination campaign against COVID-19, only to be kidnapped and thrown into the political security prisons in Marib on charges of espionage, treachery, and uranium trade.
What a human rights organization revealed about the detainees in Marib’s prisons shows an image that humanity regrets and if it had not been documented as presented by the organization, it would have been controversial. These images reflect human stories that reveal the extent of suffering due to exposure to various forms of torture and violations, preceded by stories that demonstrate the severity of the violations when some were arrested from the streets and sometimes after an unjustified raid on their homes, as many families of the prisoners have narrated.
Al-Thawrah / Yahya Al-Rubaie:
These are examples of stories of torture, humiliation, and violations of citizenship, human, child, and women’s rights, and the perpetrators of these violations have exceeded all limits with arrogance, arbitrariness, and the love of humiliation in every text, law, and ethics stipulated by the charters of heaven and earth. Stories presented by Human Rights and Freedoms at a press conference attended by the read, audio, and visual media, “Al-Thawrah” had the opportunity to attend and meet with some of the families of civilians arrested and forcibly hidden by the authorities of the “Hotels” government in the dark prisons, and various types of torture and abuse were practiced against them.
With the beginning of the story narrated by “Fenda Ali Abdullah Ahmed Al-Jashoush”, the story of her imprisoned son “Abdullah Ahmed Mohammed Al-Jashoush” began with his arrest in October 2019, following a trap set up by his cousin, as his mother recounts. She said, “My son was active in his work, and his cousin used to walk with him and sat with him for more than three months at home, providing him with food and drink and paying for his rent. Every time he went to work, he would take pictures of him and send samples of his pictures to there (mean Marib).
“Before the birth of the Prophet (peace be upon him), my son had his car tinted. At that time, his cousin came to him and said, ‘My mother is sick; she has a serious illness; we have to take her to Marib. I just need you to take us out of the “Ansar Allah” checkpoints, and my brother will be waiting for us in a car from Marib in Qaniyah Isolation in Al-Bayda Governorate, southern Yemen.”
“In Qaniyah Isolation, specifically in October 2019, my son said to him: ‘I will take you to Rada’a and come back.’ His cousin said, ‘No, walk with us a little forward, please. They took us out of Afa’ar Isolation, and they have secured the road for you. Just drop off my mother and my brother’s children, and we will return the favor. We will leave them and come back, and my brother will take my mother and the children and return from Qaniyah.’ He assured him: ‘Don’t worry, they have reached and secured the road.” mother says.
The mother continued her story: “Before that, his aunt had been visiting the house with her son for about 6-7 months, and she wanted her brother’s son (my son) to travel with her to Marib so that she could obtain a passport to travel abroad. ”A’athar”. It was a cooked game, and this is what became clear in the end. Their detained friend was arrested by ‘Ansar Allah’ from his house in his village, and this friend was a big collaborator with those who call themselves ”legitimacy”, and they twisted and turned how to get him out of prison, and all they wanted was a person from ”Ansar Allah” to bargain with him and consider him an alternative for their detained friend.”
The mother adds: “My son’s cousin lured my son to be the alternative that they could bargain with for the other person. He came to him in a friendly manner, ate and drank with him while wearing ‘Ansar Allah’ slogans on his head, and during the Mawlid, he would go and come back with my son to make it seem like he was one of ”Ansar Allah.”
The mother recalls, “My son kept a picture in his phone with ‘Abu Ali Al-Hakim,’ whom he met by chance during a visit to the rescue camp when he was a soldier,” indicating that his cousin’s son took this picture and sent it to them, referring to what is called “Marib’s legitimacy.”
In any case, the mother continues her narrative to confirm, “Before my son traveled, he did not pay attention and took his phone with everything related to his work with ‘Ansar Allah,” such as celebrating the Prophet’s birthday and pictures, and everything saved in the phone. As for his cousin, he hid his phone before traveling, took an old button phone belonging to his mother, and also traveled without any ID or anything to prove his identity.”
The story, as narrated by the mother, moves directly to the moment when the cousin called him on a Friday. They went to pick up his mother and traveled in the afternoon. That same night, when they arrived at the agreed-upon location, his cousin’s brother took his mother and four children. When he and his cousin returned, they were surprised by military vehicles waiting for them. Of course, they arrested both of them (my son and his cousin) and took them to Marib.
In Marib, my son’s cousin’s brother came and brought someone with him to guarantee his brother. (a planned matter), to the point that when his brother received them, he was in the car of the person they said was imprisoned here, “Sana’a.” They took my son and released his cousin, who only spent two days in custody. And my son (so it was repeated), they took him… they took him… they took him from the security building and transferred him to the political security.
“His cousin’s son,” as the grieving mother tells it, did not leave the police station without lying about her son. He described him as a rebel, challenger, and contributor to assassination operations and said that those in Marib are not men and that the men there in Sana’a “He incite them”.
The important thing is that the mother continues her talk; they said your son is detained in Qaniyah security. Of course, I traveled from here, and when I arrived in Qaniyah, they said they transferred him to political security, and I traveled to Marib. There, I tried, tried, tried, and after a lot of effort, they allowed me to visit him.
And here comes the surprise, as the mother narrates: “I found myself in front of my son, and he was complaining to me that someone from our isolation, who always carried passengers there, saw my son coming back and called him ‘Abu Jibril,’ follow me, and my son followed him. He said, ‘At that moment, I felt that I had been deceived. He felt he was walking into a trap. He told him to follow him to Qaniyah. He said, ‘I walked out of the point, and he called me. I answered the call, and then the call was lost.’ They caught me at that moment, and I was detained for a week, and then they continued to beat and torture me for three months until they broke my right rib. The fracture mark is still visible, and the fracture was amended, and he recovered a little.”
Now, the mother continues to describe the suffering her son endured in the political security prison in Marib: “Maybe six or seven months ago, the pain in my boy’s broken rib returned. He was suffering from high blood pressure and diabetes, and he was taken to the hospital. We contacted him in the month of Rajab, and I traveled to request a visit. There, I found my son swollen and swollen. He begged me to try with Ansar Allah to release him because they refused to release him in Marib except with an alternative. I tried through the prosecutor’s office, but they said they couldn’t do anything for him unless Ansar Allah requested him and provided an alternative for him. Other than that, there is no solution.”
“I despaired, and I tried a second and third time without any success. I applied to the Association of Kidnapped Mothers, the Family Committee in Sana’a, the Ministry of Human Rights, and human rights organizations. Until now, my son is still in the political security prison in Marib for four years. His family and children suffer from the consequences. They took his car, money, and his wife, and they didn’t give us anything back. But the only thing that matters to us now is the return of our son, who was taken while he was in good health, but now he is unable to move due to the severity of the torture he endured.”
“I despaired, and I tried a second and third time without any success. I applied to the Abductees’ Mothers Association, the Prisoners Affairs Committee in Sana’a, the Ministry of Human Rights, and human rights organizations. Until now, my son is still in the political security prison in Marib for four years. His family and children suffer from the consequences. They took him with his Janbiya, his car, and his money, and they didn’t give us anything back. But the only thing that matters to us now is the return of our son, who was taken while he was in good health, but now he is unable to move due to the severity of the torture he endured.”
Al-Jashmi:
As for the wife of Zaid Hussein Al-Jashmi, her first words were to demand that all organizations working in Yemen, human rights organizations, and the United Nations release her innocent husband. She then began to tell the story of her husband’s arrest, who worked as a Qat seller, and one of his workers: “We went to Aden to find work and to ask for a livelihood. My husband was a Qat seller, and he never carried a weapon. After ten months Suddenly, armed men attacked us in the house, took the worker who was helping my husband, and detained him. When my husband followed them and asked why they had detained him, they caught him and said, ‘You are a terrorist,’ and tortured him for three days with the most severe types of torture. After that, they returned him to home after three days. My friend (a female) was with me, and we opened the door for them. As soon as they entered, they put their guns to our heads and threatened us. They searched the house and broke everything. They even beat my husband in front of his daughters to the point that he could no longer walk due to the severity of the torture.
Hanan Ghamara, the wife of Abdullah Ali Ali Al-Hayi (a worker), continued the story by saying, “After they tortured my husband, they looked at us and started demanding that we hand over the weapon. We told them that we didn’t have any weapons and that we had never carried weapons. They took all of us to prison: me, my friend (a female), our daughters, and our husbands. When we arrived at the prison, they threatened them and said, ‘Either you confess, or we will do everything to your wives.” They forced our husbands to confess to what they wanted them to say, threatening them to harm us. Our husbands had no choice but to confess to being terrorists to protect us.”
“They beat and tortured them in front of us, humiliated us, and beat them in front of the children. Even the girls are still affected by what happened to this day. After they got them to confess, it was three o’clock in the morning in Bir Ahmed, Aden,” said Hanan Ghamara.
Enticing by decision:
And so, the series of torture and enforced disappearances continue in Abu Ghraib prisons in Marib, Deir Ahmed in Aden, and the political security prisons in Marib, until it was the turn of Dr. Bushra Mohammed Hassan to tell the story of her sister, Dr. Yusra Mohammed Hassan’s abduction (the two sisters are teachers at the Higher Institute of Health Sciences in Sana’a).
She said, “My sister was assigned by the Ministry of Health in Aden to participate in the vaccination campaign against COVID-19 in September 2022. She arrived on Friday, September 23, and was arrested on September 24, 2022, in the political security prison in Marib. She was accused of crimes that have no basis in truth. She was accused of being a spy working for the security and intelligence apparatus in Sana’a, as well as being a uranium dealer, an agent, and contributing to acts that harm public security.”
We tried every possible way and turned to human rights organizations, hoping that they would find a solution for us. My sister used to work with the World Health Organization three years ago, and she used to go back and forth to Marib, and no one stopped her because she was under the diplomatic immunity of the organization she worked for. However, when she received her latest assignment from the Ministry of Health, they arrested her on Friday from her hotel, and she has been in detention since then (for eight months).
We told them that if my sister was a criminal, the political security should have transferred her to the prosecution within 24 hours. Why is she still being held in political security until today? They violated women’s rights laws, human rights laws, and international norms.
My sister is a teacher at the health institute, and she has no political, religious, or sectarian affiliations. As teachers, when we finish our lectures, we go back to our homes. Because my sister bears the burden of her family and pays the rent for her brother, his wife, and their daughter, she resorted to working with organizations to help herself and improve her income so that she could support herself and her brother’s family.