و هنا الجزء الثالث...
Initial illustration
This report is a result of huge efforts of a group of activists including lawyers, political activists, journalists, intellectuals and observers who are interested in human rights violations and who track violations that occur in this regard. However, this report is considered as a first step on the way to establish a complete and integral documentation and monitoring report of all the violations concerning human rights in Yemen. We tried through this report to present the most critical violations that occurred in July this year beside all violations that began prior but continued until or beyond July. In addition, we divided the violations in this report in two groups of violations according to the targeted population and type of violations:
1. Violations against individuals (prosecution, cut of pensions – Threats etc.) and against peaceful activities, meetings and events (assassinations, injuries, suppression of demonstrations, mass arrests and illegal arrests)
2. Violation against the media (prosecute journalists, confiscation of newspapers, suspension and blocking of internet homepages sites)
1. Violations against individuals
The violations documented varied between arrests, threats to arrest and even to kill, full cut of pensions or salaries as punishment for civil and political activities. In several cases it was proved that the Yemeni government cut pensions and salaries of 300 southern civil and military appointees in July because of their participation in unapproved demonstrations or “illegal” political activities. Regardless of the fact whether the activities these individuals practiced were legal or not and after reviewing transcripts of the Yemeni penal code and provisions of the Constitution currently in force, no paragraph could be found that allows the central authority to issue orders preventing the payment of pensions and salaries of hundreds of political activists. However, this procedure has been implemented and more than 300 people did not receive any payments for July which clearly violates domestic lows and international rules of human rights.
- (Two months of prosecutions and night manhunts as if I were a thief not an attorney-at-law). These were the words summarized by the lawyer and human rights activist Aref Al-Halmi, who suffered from state repressions without any apparent reasons, as he said. Al-Halmi in known to volunteer to defend the victims of the protests in the South and he overtook many cases such as the killing of Omar Abdulaziz Al-Sobeihi, 21 years old, who was killed by the police while participating in a demonstration against the government in Aden, the former capital city of South-Yemen, on January 13th 2009. Al-Halmi confirms in his testimony to the monitors of the center, that for more than two months he faced various form of harassment amongst others, manhunts and attempts to assassination which lasts up to now, so he is not able to move freely in the city of Aden due to fear of attack by unknown gunmen. This occurred several times in the past.
- It is proven to our Center that on July 1st 2009 members of the Central Security Forces tried to attack the lawyer Nabil Al-Amoody physically at the military point of “Dofas” when he was returning back from Aden. They did not mention any reason for their behavior, however, Al-Amoody stressed in his statement that the reason for it was his known intention to establish a board of lawyers to defend hundreds of people detained by the Yemeni government because of their participation in events and activities of the Southern Movement.
- A lot of southern political activities are not able to return home in the main cities in South-Yemen as they are afraid to be arrested immediately once they return to their homes. One of them is Nasser Ali Annobah, one of the ******s of the Southern Movement, who has left Aden to the province of Shabwa for more than one year. In addition, the lawyer Yahya Ghalib Al-Shouaibi and the writer Ali Haitham al-Gharib, who spent 6 months in prison of the Political Security Agency in Sanaa and were released together with 10 other southern ******s in September last year, they are still chased and they do live in rural area after a number of night raids on their houses in Aden carried out by security forces.
On July 5th the Central Security Forces in Aden raided an apartment in Al-Mansourah and detained group of students and pupils who were in the apartment at that time. Among those arrested were Aref Al-Nasri (31 years old), Ghassan Olib (27) Samid Al-Hanshi (22), Hossam Baabad (25), Waddah Al-Halmi (26), Nasr Al-Sobeihi (22) and Moataz Al-Esayi (16) and his brother Ali Al-Esayi (15). Those young people were detained in the CID in Khormaxer jailed without charge or trial. After the seventh of July (anniversary of occupation of Aden), Most of them were released, however, the security services kept Aref Alnsri, Ghassan Alib and Wadah Alhalmi in jail.
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