Geneva: A coalition of United Nations Special Rapporteurs, European parliamentarians, ambassadors, international human rights organizations, and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate called on the de facto Houthi authorities in Sana’a, Yemen, to release five Baha’is detained a year ago, on May 25, 2023, in a violent armed raid.
Footage of the raid—which occurred during a peaceful gathering of the Baha’i community—was captured by a live Zoom call and published last year. Seventeen people were detained including five women. Twelve have since been released but they remain under surveillance and their movements are constrained.
The five who remain behind bars—Abdul Elah Al-Boni, Muhammad Al-Dubai, Ibrahim Juail, Abdullah Al-Olofi, and Hassan Thabet Al-Zakari—have faced a year of incarceration and other human rights violations, the United Nations Office of the Bahá’í International Community, stated. It claimed that each of the detainees has been pressured to renounce their Baha’i beliefs, without success, and has faced “re-education” programmes designed to indoctrinate them with Houthi ideology, in what clearly amounts to degrading treatment and coercion under international law.
“What justification can the de facto Houthi authorities in Sanaa offer for a violent raid by masked gunmen on a peaceful gathering of Yemeni citizens?” said Saba Haddad, Representative of the Baha’i International Community (BIC) to the United Nations in Geneva. “Seventeen people were detained without due process, despite having committed no crime, and the 12 who have been released continue to suffer outrageous human rights violations and deprivation. One day was too long to put the Yemeni Baha’is in jail. A whole year is outrageous and appalling.”
“The sad irony is that the Houthis relentlessly persecute their own people at a time when they seek to portray themselves as defenders of the oppressed,” Dr. Haddad added. “The Baha’i International Community is grateful for so many statements of support from governments, human rights officials, and prominent actors around the world.”
Last year the UN Security Council “deplored” the detention of the Yemeni Baha’is and called for their release.
“The Houthis must understand that the international community is watching,” Dr. Haddad said. “If the de facto Houthi authorities wish to be seen as more than just a band of armed thugs—if they wish to be taken seriously and not just as pawns of Iranian foreign policy—they need to be seen as fair-handed to all Yemenis and release the Baha’is without delay.”
It may be mentioned that in July 2023 Yemeni tribal leaders also condemned the May 2023 attack on the Baha’is and called for their release. The group added that persecuting Baha’is in Yemen violated tribal customs and a longstanding Yemeni cultural embrace of religious coexistence. Concerns have also been raised that Houthis attack Yemeni Baha’is on behalf of Iran. The Baha’i community in Iran has been persecuted since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. One of the Iranian government’s stated policies is to “confront and destroy their cultural roots outside the country.”
– global bihari bureau
