Houthis abduct dozens of Yemenis in crackdown on 1962 revolution celebrations

Update Armed Yemeni men gather in Sanaa to show their support for the Houthis. (File/AFP)
Armed Yemeni men gather in Sanaa to show their support for the Houthis. (File/AFP)
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Updated 22 September 2024
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Houthis abduct dozens of Yemenis in crackdown on 1962 revolution celebrations

Armed Yemeni men gather in Sanaa to show their support for the Houthis. (File/AFP)
  • Yemeni Journalists’ Syndicate said that armed Houthis abducted Mohammed Dabwan Al-Mayahi from his home in Sanaa on Friday and seized his belongings

AL-MUKALLA: Yemen’s Houthis have abducted dozens of Yemenis in the past 48 hours, the latest in a series of mass arrests in areas under their control for commemorating the 1962 revolution.

Local media and activists on Sunday said that those abducted included academics, politicians and journalists in Sanaa, Dhamar, Hodeida and Taiz for celebrating or inciting the public to celebrate the 62nd anniversary of the 1962 revolution on Sept. 26.

According to Faisal Al-Shabebi, a Yemeni journalist from the former ruling party, the General People’s Congress, the Houthis abducted at least three senior members of the party in the province of Dhamar, including the head of the party’s provincial office, Abdul Khaleq Al-Munejar, and Fuad Al-Nahari, a journalist, among others, over their revolution celebrations.

The crackdown in Dhamar comes as other Houthis stormed houses and gatherings in Sanaa, Taiz, Hodeidah and Ibb and abducted Yemenis who were celebrating the revolution or had expressed their intention to celebrate revolution day on Thursday.

“These arrests by the Houthi militia are part of their miserable attempts to suppress free people who reject their racist sectarian ideology, obliterate the immortal revolution of September 26, and terrorize Yemeni society into submission to this gang,” Al-Shabebi said.

The revolution of September 1962 deposed Zaidi imamates in northern Yemen, ending centuries of repressive rule and paving the way for establishing the Yemen Arab Republic.

Yemenis say that the Houthi militia and the imams share the same radical doctrine that limits the rule of Yemen to Hashemite families, and the Houthis seek to revive that ruling.

Abdulrahman Barman, a Yemeni human rights advocate and director of the American Center for Justice, told Arab News that the Houthis abducted a large number of Yemenis in various regions of Dhamar province on Saturday and Sunday and that some of them were abducted for celebrating the revolution or calling on the public to do so as well.

Barman believes the Houthis began their crackdown on the 1962 revolution celebrations days before revolution day to prevent Yemenis from attending large rallies on Thursday.

Raising the Yemen flag and chanting nationalist slogans, Yemenis organized rare large-scale public celebrations of the 1962 revolution in Sanaa and other Houthi-held areas in September last year despite Houthi attempts to disperse them, Barman said.

Yemeni rights groups, including the Musawaah Organization for Human Rights and Freedoms and the Rasd Coalition, condemned the Houthi crackdown on Yemenis celebrating revolution day, urging them to stop arresting people and allow the public to celebrate freely.

This comes as the Geneva-based SAM Organization for Rights and Liberties said in a report released on Saturday, the 10th anniversary of the Houthi military takeover of power, that the Houthis have closed 163 newspapers, magazines and radio stations, as well as blocked 200 websites and arrested or harassed dozens of Yemeni journalists over the past decade.

During that time, the Houthis have detained at least 18,000 Yemenis, including many who have been forcibly disappeared.

Their arbitrary shelling of residential areas in Yemen has killed at least 15,000 civilians and injured more than 34,000, while more than 2 million landmines planted by Yemeni militia in Yemen have killed at least 2,632 people, including 477 children and 168 women, and wounded 3,386, including 730 children and 219 women, according to SAM’s report.

Since September 2014, the Houthis have demolished 713 houses belonging to their opponents and recruited more than 30,000 children.

The Houthis stormed Yemen’s capital Sanaa on Sept. 21, 2014, before spreading across the country, sparking a war that has killed more than 100,000 people, displaced millions, and created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, according to the UN.


France says forced displacement of Gazans would be ‘unacceptable’

France says forced displacement of Gazans would be ‘unacceptable’
Updated 32 min 57 sec ago
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France says forced displacement of Gazans would be ‘unacceptable’

France says forced displacement of Gazans would be ‘unacceptable’
  • “Any forced displacement of the population in Gaza would be unacceptable,” a French foreign ministry spokesman said
  • “It would not only be a serious violation of international law, but also a major hindrance to the two-state solution”

PARIS: France on Tuesday said any forced displacement of Gazans would be “unacceptable” after US President Donald Trump proposed moving Gaza Palestinians to Egypt and Jordan.
“Any forced displacement of the population in Gaza would be unacceptable,” a French foreign ministry spokesman said when asked about Trump’s comments.
“It would not only be a serious violation of international law, but also a major hindrance to the two-state solution,” the spokesman said, referring to calls for Israeli and Palestinian states living side-by-side.

It would also be a “destabilization factor (for) our close allies Egypt and Jordan.”
Almost all of the Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million inhabitants have been displaced by the war that began with Palestinian militant group Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
But a fragile ceasefire that came into force this month could boost permanent peace efforts.
Trump on Monday expressed his desire to move Palestinians from Gaza to “safer” locations such as Egypt or Jordan.
Trump had on Saturday floated the idea to “clean out” Gaza after the conflict, which he said had reduced the Palestinian territory to a “demolition site.”
After jointly mediating the ceasefire with the United States and Egypt, Qatar on Tuesday said the two-state solution was “the only path forward.”
Egypt and Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas have also strongly opposed Trump’s proposal.


Crew abandon HK-flagged container ship in Red Sea after fire, sources say

Crew abandon HK-flagged container ship in Red Sea after fire, sources say
Updated 28 January 2025
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Crew abandon HK-flagged container ship in Red Sea after fire, sources say

Crew abandon HK-flagged container ship in Red Sea after fire, sources say
  • The crew were rescued by another vessel and are safe, the sources said
  • The incident took place in the open sea off Yemen

LONDON/ATHENS: The crew of the Hong Kong-flagged ASL Bauhinia have abandoned the container ship in the Red Sea after it caught fire on Tuesday, two maritime sources said, adding the cause of the incident was not immediately clear.
The crew were rescued by another vessel and are safe, the sources said, adding that the incident took place in the open sea off Yemen.
The Shanghai-based manager of ASL Bauhinia, Asean Seas Line, was not immediately available for comment.
Earlier this month, Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi militia said the group would limit their attacks on commercial vessels sailing through the Red Sea to Israel-linked ships provided the Gaza ceasefire is fully implemented.
Commercial ship owners, insurers and retailer remain cautious over the Houthis’ announcement with current traffic through the Red Sea and Suez Canal dominated by Chinese and Russian linked vessels, which have been seen as lower risk.
Since the Houthis began attacks on shipping in sympathy with the Palestinians in Gaza, most vessels have diverted to the longer east-west route via the southern tip of Africa.


Qatar reiterates support for two-state solution

Displaced Palestinians ride in a horse-drawn cart as they return to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Jan. 28.
Displaced Palestinians ride in a horse-drawn cart as they return to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Jan. 28.
Updated 58 min 32 sec ago
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Qatar reiterates support for two-state solution

Displaced Palestinians ride in a horse-drawn cart as they return to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Jan. 28.
  • “Our position has always been clear to the necessity of the Palestinian people receiving their rights, and that the two-state solution is the only path forward,” Ansari said

DOHA: Qatar reaffirmed its support for a two-state solution on Tuesday after US President Donald Trump repeated his call to move Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt or Jordan.
Foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari did not reveal details of conversations with US officials, but said Qatar often didn’t see “eye to eye” with its allies.
“Our position has always been clear to the necessity of the Palestinian people receiving their rights, and that the two-state solution is the only path forward,” Ansari told a regular media briefing when asked about Trump’s comments.
“We don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things with all our allies, not only the United States, but we work very closely with them to make sure that we formulate policy together,” he added.
Qatar, the US and Egypt jointly mediated the Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal that went into effect a little over a week ago, halting more than 15 months of fighting sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

On Monday, Trump repeated his wish to move Gazans to another country, after earlier saying he wanted to “clean out” the devastated Palestinian territory.
The US president told reporters he would “like to get them living in an area where they can live without disruption and revolution and violence so much.”
Ansari said Qatar, which hosts the region’s biggest US military base, was “engaging fully with the Trump administration and with envoy (Steve) Witkoff,” the president’s special representative for the Middle East.
“I’m not going to comment on the type of discussions we are having with them right now, but I would say that it is very productive,” Ansari said.
“We have been working very closely with the Trump administration over the regional issues as a whole, including the Palestinian issue.”


Turkiye says it killed 15 Kurdish militants in Syria and Iraq

Turkiye says it killed 15 Kurdish militants in Syria and Iraq
Updated 28 January 2025
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Turkiye says it killed 15 Kurdish militants in Syria and Iraq

Turkiye says it killed 15 Kurdish militants in Syria and Iraq

ISTANBUL: Turkiye said on Wednesday it had killed 13 Kurdish militants in northern Syria and two in Iraq, a sign that Ankara has pressed on with its campaign against fighters, some with possible links to US allies, since Donald Trump took office in the White House last week.
The Turkish defense ministry said the Kurdish fighters it had “neutralized” in Syria belonged to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia.
Turkiye considers the PKK and YPG to be identical; the United States considers them separate groups, having banned the PKK as terrorists but recruited the YPG as its main allies in Syria in the campaign against Islamic State.
Turkiye has long called on Washington to withdraw support for the YPG, and has expressed hope that Trump would revise the policy inherited from the previous administration of President Joe Biden.
Tuesday’s report of major clashes was the second within days: Turkiye also reported having killed 13 Kurdish militants on Sunday.
Turkish forces and their allies in Syria have repeatedly fought with Kurdish militants there since the toppling of Syrian President Bashar Assad last month.
Turkiye has said that the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed umbrella group that includes the Kurdish YPG, must disarm or face a military intervention.
Under the Biden administration the United States has had 2,000 troops in Syria fighting alongside the SDF and YPG.


Israeli, US strike on Iran nuclear program would be ‘crazy’: FM

Israeli, US strike on Iran nuclear program would be ‘crazy’: FM
Updated 28 January 2025
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Israeli, US strike on Iran nuclear program would be ‘crazy’: FM

Israeli, US strike on Iran nuclear program would be ‘crazy’: FM
  • Abbas Araghchi: Such an attack ‘would be faced with an immediate and decisive response’
  • ‘Lots of things should be done’ by Washington to bring Tehran to negotiating table

LONDON: Israel and the US would be “crazy” to strike Iran’s nuclear program, the latter’s foreign minister has said.

“We’ve made it clear that any attack to our nuclear facilities would be faced with an immediate and decisive response,” Abbas Araghchi told Sky News in his first interview since the inauguration of US President Donald Trump.

“I don’t think they’ll do that crazy thing. This is really crazy. And this would turn the whole region into a very bad disaster.”

In the interview, Araghchi addressed concerns over his country’s nuclear program. Trump’s first term as president saw the US pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, which had eased sanctions on Tehran in exchange for limited uranium enrichment.

Iran claims that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes, but its return to high levels of enrichment in recent years has alarmed Western governments.

Trump has said he prefers a diplomatic solution, and a new deal with Iran would be “nice.” But Araghchi said credible US guarantees would need to be provided to Iran for negotiations to begin.

“The situation is different and much more difficult than the previous time,” he added. “Lots of things should be done by the other side to buy our confidence … We haven’t heard anything but the ‘nice’ word, and this is obviously not enough.”