Human Rights stated that the Houthis had detained a judge in Yemen’s capital of Sanaa, most likely as a result of his remarks on X, the official Twitter platform, denouncing Houthi operations in the Red Sea. In the parts of Yemen under their authority, the Houthis, sometimes called Ansar Allah, intimidate, arrest, and imprison anybody who disagrees with them. Human Rights Watch researcher Niku Jafarnia stated, “While the Houthis are busy trying to project to the world that they are standing up for Palestinians in Gaza against Israel’s atrocities, they are ruthlessly silencing Yemenis under their rule who dare to criticize them.” “Yemenis are equally entitled to the fundamental human rights demanded by Palestinians.”
Arrest of Judge
On January 2, 2024, Houthi soldiers took Abdulwahab Qatran, a judge, into custody at his Sanaa home. Mohammed, the son of Qatran, claimed that the Houthi Security and Intelligence department’s personnel broke into the family’s home, intimidated the judge and his family, and pushed them into waiting military trucks. They were then detained and questioned for hours by security and intelligence personnel.
After that, they freed the other members of Judge Qatran’s family and detained him, taking him to an unidentified place. The family’s laptops and phones were taken by the Houthis, according to Mohammed in the video, and they haven’t been given back. Books, papers, and other home goods are strewn all over the floor in the backdrop of the footage, which Mohammed claims occurred during the arrest. Enforced disappearances are grave crimes under international law and are always forbidden by both international humanitarian law and international human rights law. Enforced disappearances occur when the authorities imprison someone and then fail to confirm their location or circumstances when questioned.
Suppression of Dissent
In interviews with Human Rights Watch, Qatran’s son and three other individuals acquainted with his case expressed their belief that his detention resulted from his criticism of the Houthis rather than from alcohol-related offenses. Human Rights Watch examined other evidence released by civil society organizations and other human rights campaigners, in addition to five films that his son had taken and uploaded online.
Human Rights Watch was informed at first by an individual who met with the Security and Intelligence Department on Qatran’s case that the judge’s arrest had something to do with drinking. But he also said that later on in the meeting, one of the officials asked him, “What are you going to do if you have a rooster that constantly yells at you?” The guy remarked, “That’s when we knew his arrest was related to his political and rights activism.” The UN Panel of Experts on Yemen said in its 2023 report that they had gathered evidence of several acts of torture, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary imprisonment. They also noted that “most violations investigated by the Panel were attributed to the Houthis.”
Threats to Judicial Independence
“Even though Qatran is a judge, he refused to go to work because of his position against the Houthis’ policies and the way they run governmental institutions,” human rights campaigner Riyadh al-Dubai told Human Rights Watch. He said that Qatran’s posts on the attacks on the Red Sea were just the straw that broke the camel’s back” and that the Houthis had detained him due to his wider political and legal involvement.
Judge Qatran’s family was kept in the dark for three days after the first detention by Houthi officials. When a judge’s acquaintance visited the Security and Intelligence Department on January 5, they informed him that Judge Qatran was being held there and that his family was welcome to visit. A fair trial, liberty, and security have all been violated by Houthi troops, who have also arbitrarily imprisoned, abducted, attacked, and tortured activists, journalists, and students. They have also frequently accused them of unfounded offenses unconnected to free speech.
The Houthis are just using the Palestinian cause to escape their own responsibilities to the Yemenis, who provide them with wages and services for the people they rule, and they have nothing to do with the conflict in Gaza. “A broader pattern of Houthi crackdowns on people’s rights to freedom of expression, as well as a pattern of abuse against activists and perceived political opponents” is what Qatran’s case exemplified. The civic organization Mwatana for Human Rights in Yemen said that, between 2015 and April 2023, the Houthis had committed 1,482 incidents of arbitrary imprisonment and 596 cases of enforced disappearance, flagrantly violating international humanitarian law.