The Iran-backed Houthi militias in Yemen have detained dozens of people in the Mahwit province for tearing down posters of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, slain Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani and Lebanese Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah.
Yemeni human rights sources said the posters had been posted by the Houthis.
“The residents of the village were outraged by the Iranian posters and Khomeini slogans that the Houthis have put up in all areas under their control, including schools, mosques, landmarks and state offices,” they added.
The residents, therefore, decided to tear up the posters.
The move prompted a crackdown by the Houthis.
The American Center for Justice (ACJ), a Yemeni non-government organization, expressed its condemnation of home-raids carried out by Houthi gunmen against the people of Al-Arah village last week.
ACJ said this incident terrorized children and women after the heavily armed gunmen broke into houses and the village mosque and detained 42 citizens to a secret Houthi detention center.
“The abductees were subjected to inhuman treatment as well as physical and psychological torture with the aim of forcing them to confess that they were responsible for blurring some of the slogans of the Houthi group on some of the walls of village’s houses and the wall of the mosque beside tearing pictures of Houthi and Iranian leaders, including Soleimani and Nasrallah,” the Center said.
It quoted a relative of one of the abductees as saying: “It was a night of terror. We have never imagined we would sleep in fear and insecurity in our own houses except in the era of the Houthis. So suddenly, you wake up to the sound of the chaos caused by the gunmen raiding the village and terrorizing the children and women without conscience.”
ACJ stresses that the persistence of widespread violations committed by the Houthi group undermines the chances of peace and international efforts to stop the war.
The Center called on the Houthi militias to put an end to the violations committed against civilians and to immediately release all the abductees.
