Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK (AOHR UK) said that the execution of nine Yemeni civilians, including a minor, by the Houthi group is premeditated murder.
This is another crime added to the disastrous outcome of the war in Yemen, which caused the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
The Houthi group “Ansar Allah” announced in an official statement that it had carried out the execution by shooting them in Tahrir Square in the capital, Sana’a, on Saturday morning, September 18.
The extrajudicial execution was carried out against Ali Ali Ibrahim Al-Quzi, Abdul Malik Ahmed Mohamed Hemid, Mohamed Khalid Ali Haij, Mohamed Ibrahim Ali Al-Quzi, Mohamed Yahya Mohamed Noah, Ibrahim Mohamed Abdullah Aqel, Mohamed Mohamed Ali Al-Mashkhari, Muath Abdel Rahman Abdullah Abbas, and the minor Abdulaziz Ali Mohamed Al-Aswad (17 years old).
According to AOHR UK the victims included the child Abdulaziz Al-Aswad, who was arrested and forcibly disappeared for a long period during which he was subjected to brutal and inhuman torture that caused him physical permanent disabilities as he was almost paralyzed.
AOHR UK added that the death sentences that were carried out against these civilians were issued on August 24, 2020, and were confirmed on April 05, 2021, in an unfair trial that lacked all standards of a fair trial. They were charged with participating in the killing of the President of the Houthi Political Council, Saleh Ali Al-Samad in April 2018, who was killed in an airstrike by the Saudi-led Arab coalition forces.
The Houthis accused the convicted persons of sending the coordinates of his location to the coalition, although many of them are illiterate and do not know how to use smartphones.
AOHR UK stressed that the implementation of this ruling at this time, in which human rights and the international community demand an end to the bloody war in Yemen, indicates the weak influence of the international community, which has not yet shown a real will or practical actions to stop the war and end the systematic violations of the conflicting parties.
Since 2015, the conflict between the coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, against the armed Houthi movement has led to serious crimes amounting to war crimes, where tens of thousands of civilians were killed and injured, during indiscriminate raids, assassinations, and extrajudicial executions, as well as enforced disappearance and torture of civilians, while mines were used against banned groups.
AOHR UK called, once again, on the international community to exert maximum pressure on the conflicting parties in Yemen and the countries supporting them to immediately and permanently freeze the death penalty, and to stop all arbitrary arrests, torture, and enforced disappearances.
