The Yemeni government called on the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General to Yemen to put an end to the execution verdicts issued by Houthi militias against a group of activists, politicians, and journalists.
Earlier, a Houthi court in the Yemeni coupist-held capital Sanaa sentenced 30 people to execution on charges of supposedly spying for the legitimacy and the Saudi-led coalition.
In two separate letters sent to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet and UN Special Envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Hadrami urged them to intervene by all possible means to stop the Houthi militias from completing the executions.
He warned that death sentences against innocent citizens incorporated in the prisoner exchange deal in the Stockholm agreement are “extrajudicial killings” done by an armed group that has no legal authority to issue such verdicts.
The Minister said that militias' “mock trials” are blatantly violating the human rights guaranteed by all international covenants and norms, asking them to intervene to save the lives of the detainees.
For its part, the National Alliance of Yemen political forces strongly condemned in a statement the death sentences, describing them as “illegal” based on invalid procedures and continuous violations of the law and all human rights charters.
The Alliance pointed out that such decisions reflect a clear image of the human rights conditions in areas under Houthis control, which are run by repression, intimidation, and kidnapping of political activists, journalists, and citizens from their homes and places of work. It indicated that people are only attacked because they are members of the national political parties and reject the coup and its militias.
The statement asserted that the militias’ repression and torture against its opponents come within the context of its relentless pursuit to ruin the country’s political life, criminalize the multiparty system, and establish religious clericalism.
The Alliance called on human rights organizations to condemn these repressive measures and monitor the violations committed by the coup militias against the Yemenis in general and political and partisan activists in particular.
The statement urged Griffiths and countries sponsoring the political process to put an end to the implementation of these brutal provisions and help release the abductees.
It also called on them to take a clear stance on these crimes and pressure Houthis to put an end to the systematic killings of these activists included in the prisoner exchange deal in the Stockholm agreement.
