While Houthi militias have launched their annual tax collection season in Yemen under the pretext of celebrating the Mawlid (Prophet Muhammad's birthday), the group’s members within the education sector have issued directives across hundreds of public and private schools in three Yemeni provinces.
These directives mandate the initiation of tailored intellectual programs and activities aimed at influencing students' minds.
Additionally, the schools are to be decorated with green paint and adorned with sectarian-themed slogans, all while soliciting financial donations to support the occasion.
Yemeni educational sources clarified to Asharq Al-Awsat that Houthi leaders in Amran, Ibb, and Hajjah provinces have issued new directives.
These directives bind the directors of education office branches in the districts, school directors, and heads of sectarian activity departments to commit their full efforts and energies to what is called the celebration of the Prophet’s birthday.
On social media, Yemeni activists have also circulated a document released by the Houthi director of the Education Office in the province of Amran (north of Sanaa).
This document compels education offices and schools in approximately 20 districts affiliated with the province to prepare special schedules encompassing school activities and programs.
Moreover, the document included directives that compel educators and students to prepare school radio programs that promote the Houthi group’s ideas, sanctify its leader and lineage, and affirm their entitlement to rule over Yemenis.
Furthermore, educational officials were obligated to ensure media documentation and intensive promotion of the militia's activities, along with submitting daily reports about them.
This move, targeting the education sector, was met with strong condemnation and rejection from teachers and the parents of school students.
In conversations with Asharq Al-Awsat, teachers and parents expressed their refusal to allow the militias to continue committing various violations against education, as part of their efforts to divert this sector from its path and transform it from an educational and enlightening institution into centers for promoting sectarian ideologies.
They pointed out that the militias often intensify their arbitrary actions against schools, students, and educational staff before and after any sectarian occasion.
However, this targeting expands even further whenever the anniversary of the Prophet’s birthday is observed. On such occasions, the event is turned into a platform for political, military, and ideological mobilization.
