Barely a week has passed since the head of the Houthi Supreme Political Council Mahdi Al-Mashat issued orders to pardon the death sentence of Kamal bin Haydrah and his fellow Baha’is, when the Specialized Criminal Court under their authority issued a death sentence for four journalists detained by the Houthi authorities since 2015. The Houthi authorities had sought to improve its image by issuing the release orders of the unjustly detained Baha’is. However, these orders have not been implemented so far despite the appeal to implement the release decisions.
Only a few days separate the death sentence against bin Haydrah and the death sentences issued against the four journalists, while at the same time conflicting orders for both the release of Baha’i detainees and the interception of these orders were issued during this time. This reflects the extent of the confusion caused by the Houthi militia, and is in turn reflected on society and religious freedoms and media.
On the morning of April 11th, 2020, and despite the global disaster and anxiety due to the outbreak of the Corona COVID-19 epidemic, it seems that the Houthi authorities were not concerned with any of it. On that day, the Specialized criminal court in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, issued death and imprisonment sentences for ten journalists after being detained for over five years. The trial was headed by Judge Mohammed Muflih, and the pronouncement session was held without the knowledge or presence of the defendant’s lawyers. The verdict ruled for the execution of Abdel-Khaleq Imran, Akram Al-Walidi, Harith Hamid and Tawfiq Al-Mansoori. The court also convicted Hisham Tarmoum, Hisham Al-Yousifi, Haitham Rawah, Essam Belghith, Hassan Ennab, Salah Al-Qadi, and sentenced them to prison, with the time they spent in prison counted as their sentence, while they will have to remain under police supervision for a period of three years.
Houthi media outlets have described these provisions as being brought against a group of journalists who were working as spies of the aggression, according to their description. However, reviewing the indictment that the Public Prosecution put out reveals that there is no basis or evidence for these allegations, and that they are just charges that can easily be fabricated to anyone who disagrees with them. The prosecution stated that the defendants: “Throughout the period between 1/1/2014 till 28/8/2015, provided false news, rumors, assumptions, and propaganda with the intent of weakening the defenses of the nation and weakening the morale of the people, as well as disturbing public security, inciting fear among the people, harming public interest, and establishing several web sites and pages on the Internet and social networks and secretly managing them from several hotels in the capital and broadcasting news, data and false and malicious rumors and supporting the crimes of the Saudi aggression and its allies against the Republic of Yemen, which in turn would harm the war preparations to defend the country and harm the military and armed forces, as detailed in the publications found on their computers and telephones, which were seized from them while they were committing these crimes”.
It is clear that these rulings are a flagrant violation of rights of expression and that the crime against these journalists is a crime against freedom of expression, and that the issue has nothing to do with security nor spying. Everything in this case indicates clearly that the problem the Houthi authorities who issued these provisions is with the publications contents, and that it views their differences in views with these publications and its contents, and then employs the judiciary system against those who disagree with them.
Five years of arrest, torture, and arbitrary detention, and depriving these group of young journalists who disagree with them of the most basic elements of life, and in the end were unjustly sentenced to death. Meanwhile, promoting this misleading information through the judicial and legal institutions of the state in order to justify these unfair rulings, which is a death sentence of the freedom of expression and at the same time a death sentence of logically dealing with these cases in clear legal ways.
Amnesty International has denounced these arbitrary arrests and the violations that took place along with them, stating that the 10 journalists detained since the summer of 2015 are being tried on trumped-up espionage charges for peacefully exercising their right of freedom of expression. Amnesty Int. stated that during their detention, these men were forcibly put away, held incommunicado, denied access to medical care, and subjected to torture and other ill-treatments. In one incident, on April 19, 2018, a prison guard entered their cell at night, stripped them of their clothes and severely beat them, according to reliable sources. They have been held in solitary confinement since that day.
This was not the first time that the Houthis have sentenced journalists to death. During April of 2017, the Competent Court in Sana’a issued a death sentence against the writer and journalist Yahya Al-Jubeihi, after 8 months of arbitrary detention without any crime committed, other than him not supporting their authority in his writings.
INSAF Center calls upon the Houthi authorities to consider even the minimal values of the rights of freedom, and to respect the principles of human rights to life, expression and belief without violations or harassment., and to release the journalists detained in their prisons after all these years of detention that were spent in inhuman conditions, and to cancel the unjust death sentences issued against them.
We also call upon international organizations, policy makers, and diplomats who are active in Yemeni politics and those who have the ability to put pressure on the Houthis to save the detained journalists and to abolish these unjust death sentences, and that they be released as soon as possible. The practice of political blackmail with journalists, activists, and members of minorities will not serve anyone as much as it aids in the loss of the truth, freedom, and future of society as a whole.
