SAM Organization for Rights and Liberties said that the legitimate Yemeni government and the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council should not ignore the detainees in the south of the country in their ongoing dialogue in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

SAM said in a press statement today, Wednesday 8/7/2020, that the parties to the dialogue in Riyadh should not repeat the mistake of the Riyadh agreement last year, by ignoring the human rights in the southern governorates, especially the detainees and forcibly disappeared issue.

SAM stressed the responsibility of the parties of the Arab Coalition, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, to end this issue, as they are responsible for the southern regions and they have full influence over the Yemeni parties to solve the of arbitrary detainees, forcibly disappeared, and other issues of human rights violations.

"The organization has received many reports from the families of the arbitrarily detained, all of which confirm that the Bir Ahmed prison administration denied the detainees the visitation for more than three months, and ignores the judicial release orders for some of the detainees in addition to their health conditions in light of the high temperatures inside the prisons," said Tawfiq Al-Humeidi, head of the SAM Organization."

Al-Humeidi affirmed that the families of the detainees are looking forward to the new Riyadh agreement to include a fair way out for human rights violations and to alleviate the pain of victims of enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention, and the families of the victims of political assassinations in the city of Aden in particular and the rest of the southern governorates in the Republic of Yemen.

SAM called the parties to the conflict in Yemen to be fully courageous in dealing with this issue, away from any political considerations, and void malicious claims, especially in light of the fears of the spread of Coronavirus and the absence of any health and legal guarantees for detainees in prisons.

The statement stressed that any reconciliation or agreement that does not address the two cases of enforced disappearance and the victims of assassinations cannot be successful, which requires dealing with the two issues with a solution that includes revealing the whereabouts and fate of the forcibly disappeared and releasing the detainees and making reparation to the victims of the assassinations and the right of society to know the truth.

SAM Organization for Rights and Liberties - Geneva

July 8, 2020