Human Rights Watch issued a report yesterday linking the Yemeni government’s brutality to the pronounced terror threat emanating from the al Qaeda group in Yemen, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
Britain raised its terror alert level yesterday from “substantial” to “severe” indicating a terror attack is “highly likely.” No specific reason was cited by British authorities. The UK is holding a conference on Yemen January 27 to address heightened concerns about the terror threat from AQAP following the failed attempt to bomb an airliner landing in Detroit on Christmas day. A conference on Afghanistan will follow the Yemen conference.
The rights group warned western nations about allying themselves too closely with the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a chronic violator of human rights noting, “Government repression has often targeted – and alienated – Yemenis who might otherwise be supportive of government efforts against AQAP.” The Saleh regime is widely reviled in Yemen due to its corruption as well as brutality.
In its report, Seven Principles for Effective International Engagement in Yemen, Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged the international community to assure foreign aid to Yemen does not fund further violence against Yemeni civilians.
The group recommended that the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights establish a human rights monitoring mission in Yemen. Stressing the importance of an independent judiciary, HRW also urged that impartial humanitarian agencies have access to all places of detention in Yemen, including private and tribal prisons.
In southern Yemen, where anti-government protests have swelled since 2007, the government’s repressive policies include “shooting unarmed protestors, denying injured protestors medical care, shutting opposition newspapers, silencing dissidents, and waves of arbitrary arrests,” and resulted in the alienation of a substantial portion of the citizenry from the central government.
In Sa’ada, northern Yemen, an intermittent war since 2004 resulted in “alleged serious violations of international humanitarian law” by the Yemeni military, the report continued.
“Operation Scorched Earth” was launched in August 2009 to wipe out rebel forces, called the Houthis after a slain leader. Sustained indiscriminate bombing often targeted cities, villages, mosques and hospitals with no warning. Over 200,000 fled the violence, most with only what they could carry. UN refugee camps are overcrowded and under supplied due to government restrictions. Short food, water and medicine, children are dying from cold or starvation while in the UN camps. Tens of thousands remain beyond the reach of international aid organizations.
Dubbed “Yemen’s Darfur” by Yemeni activists, patterns of collective punishment of the civilian population in the Sa’ada War include denying humanitarian access by aid groups, a blockade on food and medicine and mass arrests including children based on vague suspicions of sympathy for the Houthi rebels.
Other repetitive human rights violations by Saleh’s regime include arbitrary arrests of dissidents, a brutal crackdown on the independent media and widespread torture by security forces. The torture of children as young as eleven and twelve is well documented.
A report on al Qaeda from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee released Wednesday noted a “significant threat” posed by Americans who converted to Islam in US prisons and have since moved to Yemen. US law enforcement officials are also on the lookout for Western female suicide bombers trained in Yemen. The threat is described as “current” but not “imminent,” ABC News reported.
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