JOINT
STATEMENT BY HUMAN RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES GROUPS
Human Rights Groups Condemn Arbitrary Detention of Yemeni Human Rights Defenders and Urge Authorities to Permit Advocates to Freely Travel and Conduct Human Rights Work
June 19, 2018
The undersigned human rights and civil liberties organizations condemn the unlawful detention yesterday of Radhya Almutawakel and Abdulrasheed Alfaqih, two prominent Yemeni human rights defenders with Mwatana Organization for Human Rights, and call on all parties to the armed conflict in Yemen to respect the work of human rights advocates.
Authorities working at government-controlled Seiyun city
airport detained the advocates on June 18, 2018, as they were preparing to
travel abroad to an event at the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue in Oslo,
Norway. The authorities confiscated Almutawakel and Alfaqih’s telephones and
other personal belongings, and held the advocates for approximately 12 hours.
The advocates were given no reasons for the detention, but were told by the
detaining Yemeni government security forces that they were not permitted to
travel and were being arrested at the behest of the Saudi and United Arab
Emirates (UAE)-led Coalition. After their release, they received further
threats from officials that they could be detained again soon.
The actions of the governments are in breach of the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, including the right to
liberty and to be free from arbitrary detention (Article 9), the right to
liberty of movement and to leave any country (Article 12), and the rights to
freedom of expression (Article 19), peaceful assembly (Article 21), and
association (Article 22). The detentions also undermine government commitments
in The Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted by the United Nations
General Assembly in Resolution A/RES/53/144, which protects the rights of human
rights advocates to promote human rights at the national and international
levels.
The arbitrary detention of Almutawakel and Alfaqih comes at
a time when the United Nations considers Yemen the worst humanitarian crisis in
the world. Yemen’s war continues, in which all sides have committed severe
human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law. Millions
of Yemenis are suffering from the devastating consequences of violations
committed by the Saudi-led Coalition, the Houthis and other armed groups
including al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. The UAE-led offensive on the port
of Hodeidah, critical for the supply of humanitarian aid to the country,
threatens to exacerbate this already dire situation.
The work of Radhya Almutawakel, Abdulrasheed Alfaqih, and
other human rights defenders to document the rights violations in Yemen is
therefore all the more vital to ensure that the global community remains
informed of the rights situation in one of the most underreported conflicts in
the world.
Mwatana is a globally recognized
Yemeni civil society organization, which impartially investigates violations by all parties
to the war in Yemen.
The detentions of Almutawakel and Alfaqih are part of a
pattern of harassment and repression of human rights work in Yemen committed by
all sides. Alfaqih was briefly detained by authorities loyal to Yemeni
President Hadi on June 14, 2018. In 2017, the Yemeni embassy in Washington,
D.C. wrote a letter to U.S. Senators attacking the reputation of Mwatana.
The Houthis have repeatedly beaten, threatened, harassed, and detained representatives
of Mwatana and other advocates. More than ten journalists remain arbitrarily
and unlawfully detained by the Houthis since early 2015. Throughout the
conflict, human rights defenders and journalists have been harassed,
threatened, beaten, arbitrarily detained, and forcibly disappeared in both
government and Houthi-controlled territory.
The undersigned groups call on the Yemeni government
authorities and the Saudi and UAE-led Coalition authorities to provide full
reparations for the unlawful detention of Almutawakel and Alfaqih, including
public acknowledgment of wrongdoing, apology, and a commitment to refrain from
any further hindrance of human rights work, including any threats of detention
or restrictions on travel. The groups call on all sides to the conflict,
including the Houthis, to respect the rights of human rights defenders. The
signatories also call on other states, particularly those allied with or who
support the warring parties, to urge the parties to the conflict to uphold the
rights of defenders, to increase their efforts in ending all human rights
abuses, and to cease ongoing law of war violations in Yemen.
We stand in solidarity with our human rights advocate colleagues
in Yemen.
Amnesty International
Article 36
Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies
Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC)
Control Arms Coalition
European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR)
Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Global Justice Clinic (NYU School of Law)
Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR)
Human Rights Clinic (Columbia Law School)
Human Rights Watch
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) within the
framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
PAX
Reprieve
Rights Watch (UK)
World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) within the
framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
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