The Houthis are abusing the residents of Barkan isolation in Saada

Yemeni human rights activists launched an electronic campaign in solidarity with the residents of the Burkan area of ​​Razih district in Saada governorate (the main stronghold of the Houthi militia), following the militia’s launch of a military campaign to abuse them, amid government condemnation and calls for UN and international intervention to stop these violations.

The militias launched a military campaign, described by human rights activists as “aggressive”, against the people of isolation, and targeted by indiscriminate shelling with various types of weapons the people of the region and their homes, to force them, under intimidation and oppression, to accept the establishment of a landfill in their area.

The Houthis imposed, according to local sources, a suffocating siege on the area and its residents, and kidnapped a number of them, in addition to others who declared their solidarity with them, led by the Houthi leader called Qassem Suleiman, who was appointed by the militias as a general supervisor in the Razih district, and he was kidnapped because of his condemnation of these practices. The sons of “Barkan” isolation, and his description of it as an “war crime and siege” is unjustified.

In the same context, local residents talked about the militiamen’s kidnapping of a number of people from their area and from other nearby villages, as a result of their solidarity with them, and their demand to stop the Houthi violations against them, and accused the militias of seeking to turn their villages into a dumping ground for waste by force.

While the Houthi criminal behavior sparked a wave of anger and strong condemnation in the human rights and societal circles, Yemenis denounced the crime, and said that the crimes of bombing, intimidation, siege and kidnapping committed by the coup group against the people of Saada were not the first time, and it will not be the last, as it has more than once suffered abuse. them, especially those who reject it and its sectarian projects of Iranian bent. Activists on social media described Saada governorate as “the first republican chest to receive the daggers of Houthi hatred,” and that it “is still paying the heaviest price to this day, after the Houthi managed to mobilize its people under enticement and intimidation.” They called on journalists and human rights activists to interact with the campaign to condemn the militias and expose their violations against the people of Saada, and stressed that the complete absence of human rights organizations in Saada enabled the militias to continue committing the most heinous crimes and violations against the population in that province.

These crimes were not the first for the militias against the residents of Saada, in order to intimidate them and force them, in various ways and methods, to identify with Houthi ideas. The group had already issued, late last year, through the judiciary subject to the coup, judicial rulings that ruled the death and imprisonment of dozens of people from Saada, after accusing them of “espionage and national treason.”

Meanwhile, the Yemeni Minister of Information, Muammar Al-Eryani, denounced in the strongest terms the militia’s launch of a military campaign of dozens of vehicles, vehicles, and armored vehicles to isolate, and Al-Eryani explained in official statements that the militias impose a tight siege on civilians in the region, in an attempt to force them to transfer their lands. a landfill.

The Yemeni minister said in official statements that “the governorate of Saada has paid, and still is, a heavy price for Houthi terrorism, and has suffered, and still does, from its aggressive behavior towards all those who reject its misguided ideology and its criminal practices, and among those crimes is its recent orders to execute 16 of the governorate’s residents who reject its coup.” On fabricated malicious charges, in sham trials.

Al-Eryani called on the international community, the United Nations, its special envoy, and human rights organizations and bodies to condemn the Houthi crimes and violations against citizens in their areas of control, including the crime of besieging and bombing civilians in the isolation of Burkan in Razih district, and to exert real pressure to immediately lift the military campaign and siege on the area.

The American Center for Justice, a Yemeni human rights organization operating from American soil, denounced, in a statement, the death sentences and prison sentences against 32 citizens from Saada, issued by a court controlled by the Houthi coup militia.

The center said that these rulings came under the group’s complete and absolute control over the security and judicial services in the areas under its control, and to use them in favor of its agenda, and it had previously issued, through this court and other courts, more than 340 death sentences. He described these and other rulings as “invalid”, which completely contradicts the most basic principles of justice, and a court that was established in violation of the provisions of the Yemeni constitution, which does not allow the establishment of exceptional courts, and the decision of the Supreme Judicial Council that abolished this court.

The Center considers these judgments a flagrant violation of all international laws, charters and treaties, and lacks all the elements of a fair and simple trial, and comes from an illegitimate party that controls the judiciary and security agencies and institutions. He also expressed his deep concern about the continuation of these trials, and that the militias would later issue similar sentences against the abductees, who are in the thousands. He also declared his fear that these sentences would be implemented without deterrence, especially since the convicts and the abductees are without protection of any kind.

He said that the international community “has a moral, legal and humanitarian responsibility to stop these sentences and executions,” calling on it to work to stop them.