SAM Organization for Rights and Liberties said that the Houthi group's announcement today of the release of 113 detainees from its prisons, with support led by the International Committee of the Red Cross in Yemen, is a position that deserves appreciation and praise.
The organization added that this step should be followed by other steps in this regard, calling on the Houthi group, the legitimate government, and the Transitional Council, as well as all parties to the conflict in Yemen, to take a step forward in revealing the fate of the forcibly disappeared and arbitrarily detained, foremost among them the leader of the Islah party, Muhammad Qahtan, who has been languishing in Houthi prisons since September 2014, in addition to Dr. Mustafa Al-Mutawakil, who has been forcibly disappeared since his arrest at the Al-Falaj checkpoint in Marib in 2017.
The organization noted that the detainees and forcibly disappeared are facing various forms of violations, especially in Houthi detention centers, where detainees are subjected to torture, physical liquidation, or death under mysterious circumstances, the latest of which was the announcement of the death of the detainee Najib Al-Aneeni, who was forcibly disappeared in Houthi prisons since February 2017, and during this period his family did not know his fate or his conditions or the place of his detention, until they were informed of his death on May 18th.
The organization stressed the need to pay special attention to the file of women detainees and the disappeared in the prisons of the parties to the conflict in Yemen, and to work on their unconditional release, noting that many of them suffer from serious medical and psychological complications exacerbated or caused by the conditions of detention and harsh treatment.
Sam called on the parties to the conflict in the country to deal with the file of detainees as a humanitarian issue that is not subject to political bargaining and extortion, calling on these parties to make more efforts to resolve this file, in a way that ensures the return of all detainees, especially with the approach of the Eid al-Adha occasion, which should be exploited to reunite families and console the families who have tasted the bitterness of loss and deprivation of their loved ones for years.