SAM for Rights and Liberties said that the observance of the International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief, marked annually on 22 August, comes at a time when religious communities and individuals in Yemen continue to face serious violations because of their religious identity or beliefs. These violations range from arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture, and pressure to change one’s beliefs, to incitement, hate speech, restrictions on religious practice, displacement, and exclusion, against the backdrop of a protracted conflict that has weakened protection and accountability mechanisms and, in some areas, turned religious affiliation into a source of danger rather than a protected personal right.
SAM noted that on 28 May 2019, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution A/RES/73/296, proclaiming 22 August as the International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief, reaffirming the need to support victims and their families and to confront intolerance, discrimination, and incitement based on religion. The organization stressed that the significance of the occasion goes beyond remembrance and extends to dismantling the conditions that allow such violence to occur in the first place. Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantees everyone the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, and prohibits coercion that would impair a person’s freedom to have or adopt a religion or belief of their choice, while Article 20(2) requires the prohibition of advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence.
The organization added that information concerning the situation of Yemeni Christians reveals particularly alarming developments. On 9 February 2026, Human Rights Watch documented an arrest campaign carried out by Houthi authorities beginning in late November and early December 2025, stating that more than 20 Christians had been arbitrarily detained by 12 January 2026 in Sana’a, Ibb, and other areas under the group’s control. One source cited by the organization said he was aware of the arrest of 24 people, while another counted 21 detainees. Human Rights Watch also said that the circumstances surrounding the detention of many of them, including the authorities’ failure to inform their families of their fate or whereabouts, could amount to enforced disappearance.
Information published by organizations specializing in the situation of Christians suggests that the scale of the arrests may have been considerably broader. Open Doors UK & Ireland reported on 20 July 2026 that more than 60 Christians had been arrested as part of the crackdown, with some detained in front of their wives and children or taken from their homes to undisclosed locations. Citing local partners, the organization reported that some detainees had been subjected to solitary confinement and repeated interrogations, and that pressure on some of them included attempts to force them to renounce their beliefs. SAM said that the discrepancy between published figures underscores the need for an independent investigation and an official disclosure of the names, locations, and legal status of all detainees, particularly given the severe difficulties involved in documenting violations against a religious community whose members often practice their faith discreetly because of security concerns.
SAM said that the risks facing Christians, particularly those suspected of having converted, are compounded by the existing legal framework. The U.S. Department of State’s report on religious freedom in Yemen notes that Yemeni law criminalizes apostasy and permits the death penalty for a person convicted of apostasy who does not recant after being given opportunities to repent. The organization considers the criminalization of changing or abandoning one’s religion to be inconsistent with Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which protects every person’s right to have or adopt a religion or belief of their choice and prohibits coercion that would impair this freedom.
With regard to the Bahá’ís, SAM emphasized that documented incidents reveal a sustained pattern rather than an isolated event or a temporary wave of arrests. The Bahá’í International Community’s Yemen background file documents a series of prosecutions and arrests targeting members of the Bahá’í community over several years, which escalated significantly after the Houthi group took control of Sana’a in 2014. One of the most prominent cases was the arrest of Yemeni Bahá’í Hamed Kamal Muhammad bin Haydara in December 2013. Human Rights Watch later documented allegations that he had been tortured and, for periods, denied regular access to his family and lawyer.
In January 2018, a court in Sana’a sentenced Hamed bin Haydara to death and ordered the confiscation of his property, while the ruling also included measures against Bahá’í institutions. An appeals court upheld the sentence in March 2020. A pardon was subsequently announced, and on 30 July 2020, bin Haydara and five other Bahá’ís — Walid Ayyash, Akram Ayyash, Keyvan Qaderi, Badie Allah Sanaei, and Wael al-Ariki — were released. However, the Bahá’í International Community documented that their release was linked to their departure from Yemen, raising concerns that exile was effectively used as a condition for ending their detention.
The Bahá’í International Community also documents that security forces raided a Bahá’í educational gathering in Sana’a in August 2016 and arrested more than 60 men, women, and children, in one of the largest mass arrest operations targeting members of the community. At a later stage, 24 people, including Bahá’ís and individuals who defended them, faced trial before the Specialized Criminal Court in Sana’a in a case that international organizations considered closely linked to their religious identity and peaceful activity within the Bahá’í community. Amnesty International addressed these prosecutions, calling for the charges related to the peaceful exercise of religious rights to be dropped.
One of the clearest incidents occurred on 25 May 2023, when armed men affiliated with Houthi authorities raided a peaceful Bahá’í gathering in a private home in Sana’a and arrested 17 people, including five women. Amnesty International documented that the detainees were held because of the peaceful exercise of their rights and their religious affiliation, and that their families were denied information about their whereabouts for periods of time. Meanwhile, United Nations experts warned in May 2024 that those who remained in detention were at risk of torture and violations that could amount to enforced disappearance.
According to information compiled by the Bahá’í International Community, the violations did not end with the gradual release of those arrested during the May 2023 raid. Some of those released were reportedly subjected to undertakings and restrictions, including prohibitions on contacting other Bahá’ís, participating in Bahá’í religious activities, and restrictions on movement and communications, in addition to financial or commercial guarantees. The Bahá’í International Community also reported that detainees were subjected to an ideological program and pressure to renounce their beliefs, raising serious concerns about the use of religious coercion, which is prohibited under international standards governing freedom of religion or belief.
In a statement submitted by the Bahá’í International Community to the 60th session of the Human Rights Council on 3 October 2025, it said that Bahá’ís in Houthi-controlled areas continued to face persecution and were denied the freedom to practice their faith. The statement linked this treatment to a campaign of hate speech and incitement dating back to 2014, disseminated through media outlets, religious sermons, and educational curricula, in which Bahá’ís were portrayed as agents, a foreign group, or religious deviants. It further linked such rhetoric to a record of raids on gatherings, arbitrary arrest, enforced disappearance, torture, imprisonment, exile, and death sentences.
As for Yemeni Jews, SAM said that what this community has endured represents one of the harshest examples of the decline of a historic religious community that had lived in Yemen for centuries. U.S. Department of State reports on religious freedom indicate that in March 2021, the Houthis forced nearly all remaining members of Yemen’s Jewish community to leave the country, including 13 individuals from three families. Following their departure, the Jewish presence in Yemen was reduced to an extremely small number, while Yemeni Jew Levi Salem Musa Marhabi remained in detention.
The organization highlighted in particular the case of Levi/Libi Salem Musa Marhabi, whom the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) lists in its Freedom of Religion or Belief Victims Database as a detainee targeted because of his Jewish religious identity. Marhabi was arrested in March 2016 over allegations that he had helped remove an ancient Torah scroll from Yemen. He was sentenced to three years and six months in prison, yet his detention continued after the completion of his sentence and despite a 2019 court order for his release.
The USCIRF 2026 Annual Report confirms that Libi Marhabi remained in Houthi detention during 2025 despite the court order for his release. The U.S. Department of State also cited information indicating that he had been tortured in detention, resulting in a serious deterioration in his health, while the American Sephardi Federation’s campaign concerning his case refers to reports that he suffered partial paralysis. SAM considers his continued detention after the expiry of his sentence and the issuance of a release order to constitute a serious violation of the right to liberty and security of person and to raise additional concerns about discrimination on the basis of religious identity.
Marhabi’s case takes on broader significance in light of the general environment surrounding Jews in Houthi-controlled areas. The USCIRF 2026 Annual Report documents the continued use of anti-Jewish rhetoric and slogans with religiously hostile content, including a gathering broadcast in Sana’a in May 2025 in which anti-Jewish chants were heard. USCIRF’s report on religious freedom in Houthi-controlled areas also addresses pressures affecting Jews, Bahá’ís, Christians, and others holding different beliefs. SAM stressed the need to maintain a clear separation between Jewish religious identity and Israeli government policies or regional conflicts, as no citizen’s religion may lawfully be turned into a basis for suspicion, punishment, or incitement.
The organization noted that violence against Yemeni Jews predates the current phase. On 11 December 2008, Yemeni Jew Moshe Yaish Nahari was killed in the town of Raydah in Amran Governorate. The U.S. Department of State documented the incident, noting that the perpetrator shot him following a confrontation with a religious dimension. Minority Rights Group International has also documented attacks and threats against Yemeni Jews during that period, which prompted a number of families to leave their traditional areas of residence.
In May 2012, Yemeni Jew Aharon Zindani was stabbed to death in a market in Sana’a following accusations related to the practice of “witchcraft,” an incident documented by Minority Rights Group International as part of the broader record of violence and discrimination faced by Yemen’s Jewish community. SAM said that the cases of Nahari and Zindani painfully illustrate how religious stigmatization and incitement can move from rhetoric and social exclusion to physical assault and killing when protection and accountability are absent.
Minority Rights Group International also documented the displacement of members of the Jewish community from Sa’dah as the conflict escalated beginning in 2006 and 2007, amid threats and security concerns that drove Jewish families to leave their communities and relocate to Sana’a and elsewhere. The organization reported that some community members subsequently lived in an atmosphere of fear and isolation and were forced to reduce visible expressions of their identity and practice their religion discreetly. This indicates that the decline of Yemen’s Jewish community was not solely the result of ordinary migration, but was also linked to an increasingly insecure and discriminatory environment.
SAM said that the incidents affecting Christians, Bahá’ís, and Jews, despite the different circumstances of each community and the distinct course of each case, converge around a deeply troubling pattern: turning religious belief into a basis for criminalization or suspicion, linking minorities to foreign powers, and then using those allegations to justify detention, incitement, or restrictions on movement, organization, and religious practice. The organization recalled that the international standards outlined by the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief protect the right of every person to have or adopt a religion or belief of their choice, to change it, and to manifest it individually or collectively, publicly or privately, while also protecting those who do not profess a religion.
SAM stressed that religious hate speech becomes particularly dangerous when it emanates from de facto authorities or influential political and religious leaders, or when it enters the media, educational materials, and mobilizing rhetoric. The UN Rabat Plan of Action underscores the importance of addressing advocacy of religious hatred that reaches the level of incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence, while at the same time safeguarding freedom of expression. SAM believes that protecting Yemen’s religious diversity requires confronting incitement at its source before it translates into attacks against individuals and communities.
SAM called on the Houthi authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Levi Salem Musa Marhabi, as well as all Christians and others detained because of their beliefs or the peaceful exercise of their rights; disclose the whereabouts of all persons whose families still do not know their fate; enable detainees to communicate with their families and lawyers and receive medical care; and conduct independent investigations into allegations of torture and ill-treatment. The organization also called for the lifting of all restrictions imposed on released Bahá’ís, an end to any practices aimed at forcing individuals to renounce their beliefs, an end to incitement against Bahá’ís, Jews, Christians, and other minorities, and guarantees of their rights to assembly, worship, and the management of their religious and civil affairs without fear, in accordance with Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
SAM also called on the internationally recognized Yemeni government, local authorities, and all de facto powers controlling territory to review laws and policies that discriminate on the basis of religion or belief, particularly provisions that criminalize changing one’s religion or permit punishment for apostasy, and to ensure that citizenship rights, civil rights, access to justice, and public services are entirely independent of religious affiliation. The organization emphasized that Yemen’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights require the protection of freedom of religion or belief, non-discrimination, and effective legal protection for all persons without distinction.
The organization urged the United Nations and the international community, particularly the Human Rights Council and the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, to keep the situation of religious minorities in Yemen among their human rights priorities, independently document cases of detention, disappearance, religious coercion, and incitement, press for the release of victims of religious persecution and access to remedy, and include clear guarantees for freedom of religion or belief and minority protection in any future political process or peace arrangements in Yemen.
SAM concluded its statement by emphasizing that Yemen’s religious and sectarian diversity is an integral part of its history and social fabric, and that the disappearance of a religious community from its homeland, the need for its members to conceal their beliefs, the targeting of their homes and meeting places in raids, or the imprisonment of a person for years because they are Jewish, Bahá’í, Christian, or because they have chosen a different belief, are not marginal issues in the human rights record. Rather, they are serious indicators of the erosion of citizenship and the rule of law. On the International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief, SAM affirms that honoring the victims begins with protecting the living and guaranteeing every person’s right to believe, change their belief, practice their religion, or refrain from doing so without fear of arrest, torture, exile, or killing.