Geneva – The Geneva Council for Rights and Liberties condemned today the arrest by The Houthi movement officially called Ansar Allah in Yemen of a journalist’s father and a relative, arbitrarily and without any legal basis, in gross violation of international law and human rights instruments.
In its statement, the Geneva Council called on Ansar Allah to immediately release the father of the journalist Samir al-Nimri and stop the illegal violations against him, noting that the detainee in Al-Mahweet governorate is 60 years old and that his illness and old age have not been taken into account. He is currently placed in prison without charge and without committing any crime.
Al-Nimri said in testimony on Twitter that his father “works in the village’s mosque and takes care of the prayers. An unknown person has wiped out the slogan of the Huthis (Ansar Allah) affixed to the inner wall of the mosque. The Houthis came afterwards and arrested him”.
The Geneva Council claimed the parties to the conflict in Yemen are involved in violations such as enforced disappearances and arbitrary arrests, since Yemeni human rights organizations have been documenting hundreds of disappearance cases and arrests for years.
The human rights council noted that international human rights law prohibited arbitrary detentions, which are usually motivated by reprisal without any legal basis, leading to enforced disappearance, with the risk of torture and ill-treatment.
The Geneva Council emphasized the international community responsibility to exert more efforts in order to end the reality of human rights violations in Yemen and to ensure that the parties to the conflict respect the UN’s obligations, including the prohibition of torture and arbitrary detention.
