Tayseer Al Samai
Many things attracted journalist Taysir Al-Samai in the detention center. He didn't enter it as a visitor but as a detained person, forcibly taken from his village. The Houthi group did not spare journalists and media workers, as they attacked Yemeni media institutions, raided their offices, closed them down, and confiscated their contents. Journalists were displaced, some were imprisoned, and dozens lost their jobs, including Al-Samai, who returned to the village to shepherd the sheep.
The Houthis spared journalist Taysir from the hardship of herding sheep and took him to the Salih City detention center, where he witnessed and lived the life of a journalist. This prison is extremely bad, and most of those who were detained in Taiz are transferred to this prison. It used to be a residential city before the buildings were converted into private prisons. Each building has a name: the General Prison, Student Prison, Adult Prison, Insane Prison, and some cells are named after the supervisors: Abu Kamil Building, Abu Laith Building, and so on. Each building has a team of torturers and tortured individuals who were abducted from the roads.
The Salih City detention center lacks the most basic humanitarian necessities. There are no beds or blankets, and most of the detainees sleep on the floor tiles. If they manage to get a blanket, it is small and extremely dirty. The Houthis have sealed the unfinished building windows, leaving only small openings to be used as cells. The sanitation conditions are extremely poor, leading to the spread of insects such as lice and fleas in a terrible manner. There is no cleanliness in the prison rooms, and the Houthis do not allow the prisoners to maintain hygiene or provide them with the necessary tools.
The food provided to the detainees in the Salih City detention center is very limited and of extremely poor quality. They are not allowed to bring food from outside, so they feel hungry inside the prison and struggle to find enough to eat. Healthcare is also completely absent, so if a prisoner experiences any medical emergency, there is no one to provide treatment. There is a person claiming to be a medical assistant, but he has no understanding of medicine. If he visits a patient, he only provides basic sedatives after a great deal of suffering. There is deliberate humiliation and mistreatment of the prisoners, especially those from Taiz, as the majority of the detainees are from that province.
In the Salih City prison, detainees are subjected to various forms of torture and unethical practices, especially during interrogations. Journalist Taysir Al-Samai witnessed and heard the suffering of the prisoners. Some of them have been subjected to torture, humiliation, and sexual harassment. Others have endured mock executions and psychological torment. Furthermore, the prisoners are isolated from the outside world, prohibited from communicating with their families. Confessions extracted under torture are recorded and broadcasted through the media channels of the group.
Bassem Abadi
People are unaware of what happens behind the camera. They watch a video clip broadcasted by the media outlets of the group that has detained the unfortunate individual, who reads confessions as they desire. This practice is in violation of international humanitarian and human rights law. The Houthis extract confessions under pressure and coercion and broadcast them to the public, often with their adversaries, as a strategy to appease the angry public in response to their widespread arrests.
But Bassem Abadi is not a prominent leader or a person of significant influence to sway public opinion against the Houthis. So why did they do that? The Houthis transferred Abadi from a cell in the Salih City detention center to another cell in the same residential city, which they named the "Aden Cell." Then they took him out of there, blindfolded him, and led him to the interrogation room.
In the room, the investigators directed a number of questions and requests towards him, including the demand to confess to the fabricated charge of being affiliated with "Daesh" (ISIS).
Following the armed invasion of most Yemeni provinces in collaboration with the forces of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the accusation of being "Daesh" (ISIS) sympathizers became widespread. However, it was not meant to imply affiliation with the extremist organization itself, but rather the Houthis and Saleh's forces used this accusation against those who opposed them. Bassem Abadi, refusing to accept the charge, was met with physical abuse by the investigator, who slapped and hit him on his face and head. After a brief pause, the investigator repeated the demand, to which Bassem defiantly responded, "Allah is sufficient for me, and He is the best Disposer of affairs."
Bassem Abadi did not know that his defiance would only increase the anger of the investigator, who proceeded to violently strike various parts of his body. Then, the electric shock device was brought in, and its terminals were connected to his hands. The investigator operated the switch, and Bassem lost consciousness, only to regain it through another shock. He pleaded with the investigator for mercy, his body trembling, and tears streaming down his face from the pain of torture.
Meanwhile, they brought in "the camera and the cameraman," and behind the camera, they held up a paper with what they wanted Bassem to read. There were armed individuals behind the camera as well, pointing their rifles at him. In order to protect himself from further torture, Bassem reluctantly read aloud the words written on the paper, confessing to the charge of providing coordinates for Arab coalition airstrikes against the Houthis.
Mushtaq al-Faqih
Bassem Abadi was not the only innocent detainee in the Salih detention center. The others whom he encountered, including Mushtaq Al-Faqih, were also innocent. The Houthis claimed that they were war prisoners, although there were no actual prisoners among them.
When they took him, Mushtaq was more concerned about his family and his sick mother than himself. He spent the first week in the building the Houthis referred to as the "Reception Prison," which was designated for detainees with mental and psychological conditions.
After a week, they led Mushtaq to the interrogation, but they found nothing in his possession that warranted his detention. They then transferred him to another building in the residential city, which the Houthis claimed was designated for war prisoners. However, all of them were actually detainees picked up from the streets and security checkpoints based on flimsy suspicions or false reports.
Mushtaq confirms, "In prison, I encountered a diverse range of detainees, including the mosque preacher, the teacher, the soldier, the sheikh, the intellectual, the builder, the carpenter, the blacksmith, the driver, the laborer, and individuals with mental health conditions."
In the prison, there were suppressed moans, oppressed sighs, and prayers of the unjust. There were stories that made one cry and others that elicited laughter to the point of tears. In the cell where I was initially placed, I got to know a group of young men. One of them was from Samah Taiz, arrested at the Rahida checkpoint under the false accusation of coming from Ma'rib. He was subjected to beatings and electric shocks to force him to confess that he was a "military personnel." Another young man from the Salo Directorate was arrested during a "Sofitel" raid simply because he was wearing a military jacket. When they searched his phone and found pictures of him holding a rifle, they beat him during the interrogation until he confessed.
One of the young men from Sharab was arrested at the "Ghee and Soap Factory" checkpoint when they searched an envelope that someone had sent with him in exchange for a delivery fee of 2,000 riyals. Inside the envelope, they found 25 recruitment forms for the resistance. They took him to the prison in their sedan car, accompanied by 20 armed individuals, as if they had apprehended a dangerous wanted person.
I also witnessed the horrendous psychological torture endured by the captured soldier, Murad Al-Hadhrami, who was captured from the Wadi Al-Dahi region. The Houthis used him as a "scapegoat," firing their modified machine guns from his back towards the resistance positions. They blindfolded him and fired shots around him to threaten him with death. In prison, he faced intense pressure during the interrogation, as they would hang him by his legs and threaten to throw him from a height unless he confessed to being a member of ISIS.
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