JEDDAH: International rights group urged Houthis in the Yemeni capital Sanaa to release a prominent activist “immediately and unconditionally.”
Hisham Al-Omeisy, 38, was detained on Aug. 14, 2017. Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Al-Omeisy has been an important public voice in Yemen, providing commentary on the country’s conflict.
Al-Omeisy used social media to report and analyze events in Yemen, where he tweeted in English and Arabic.
“Yemen, more than ever, needs activists like Hisham Al-Omeisy to bring attention to the devastation that war, famine, and disease have wrought on the country and its people,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Houthi authorities should immediately release Al-Omeisy and return him safely to his family.”
According to HRW, approximately 15 security officers arrested Al-Omeisy in the Jawlat Al-Misbahi neighborhood where he was held in an undisclosed location without charges and denied access to family and lawyers.
Sanaa and much of Yemen have been under Houthi control since September 2014. The formation of a governing council to run the country was announced by the Houthis and ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s General People’s Congress on July 28, 2016. The Supreme Political Council oversees the Sanaa-based Interior Ministry, which in turn supervises detention sites in Houthi and Saleh-controlled Yemen.
In Houthi and Saleh-held areas, many journalists and activists have been arbitrarily detained and beaten and groups’ offices closed or looted.
“All authorities in Yemen should immediately cease targeting, harassing, and arbitrarily detaining activists and journalists,” HRW said.
The New York-based group has documented 66 cases of abuse against Houthi-Saleh forces in which they arbitrarily detained people or where individuals were forcibly disappeared, including two deaths in custody and 11 cases of alleged torture or other ill-treatment, in addition to child abuse.
HRW demanded responsible authorities from all sides across Yemen to immediately free those wrongfully held, end detention without access to lawyers or family, and prosecute officials responsible for mistreatment.
According to international human rights law, an enforced disappearance occurs when the authorities take someone into custody and deny holding them or fail to disclose their fate or whereabouts. “Disappeared” people are at greater risk of torture and other ill-treatment, especially when they are detained outside formal detention facilities, such as police jails and prisons.
International human rights and humanitarian law protects the right not to be arbitrarily detained, tortured or ill-treated, or forcibly disappeared.
Those detained have the right to be informed of the specific grounds for their arrest, be able to fairly contest their detention before an independent and impartial judge, have access to a lawyer and family members, and have their case periodically reviewed.
HRW director, Whitson, warned Houthis of “future prosecution,” in case they failed to comply with the group’s demands. “Members of Yemen’s warring parties are putting themselves at risk of future prosecution if they don’t account for the whereabouts or otherwise mistreat those they have detained,” Whitson said.
HRW urges Houthis to free Hisham Al-Omeisy, other Yemeni activists held arbitrarily
HRW urges Houthis to free Hisham Al-Omeisy, other Yemeni activists held arbitrarily
UN has got only 12 percent of funds sought for war-wracked Sudan
- “It is a catastrophically underfunded appeal,” Jens Laerke, spokesman for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs told reporters
- “In Sudan, half of the population, 25 million people, need humanitarian aid. Famine is closing in. Diseases are closing in“
GENEVA: The United Nations warned on Friday that it had only received 12 percent of the $2.7 billion being sought for war-wracked Sudan, adding that “famine is closing in.”
Tens of thousands of people have died and millions have been displaced in Sudan since war broke out in April 2023 between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The United Nations says more than 1.4 million people have fled the country.
“It is a catastrophically underfunded appeal,” Jens Laerke, spokesman for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told reporters.
“Without more resources coming in fast, humanitarian organizations won’t be able to scale up in time to stave off famine and prevent further deprivation,” he said.
“In Sudan, half of the population, 25 million people, need humanitarian aid. Famine is closing in. Diseases are closing in. The fighting is closing in on civilians, especially in Darfur.”
The United Nations has expressed growing concern in recent days over reports of heavy fighting in densely populated areas as the RSF seeks control of El-Fasher, the last major city in the western Darfur region not under its control.
“Now is the time for donors to make good on pledges made, step up and help us help Sudan and be part of changing the current trajectory that’s leading toward the cliff’s edge. Don’t be missing in action,” he said.
Shible Sahbani, the UN’s World Health Organization representative in Sudan, said: “Thirteen months of war in Sudan, nine million people displaced which represent around 17 percent of the population and the largest internal displacement crisis in the world today.
“This conflict has... nearly destroyed the health system which is almost collapsed now. Close to 16,000 people have died due to this war, 33,000 have been injured,” she said, speaking from Port Sudan.
Sahbani said the real toll was “probably much higher.”
The RSF and Sudan’s armed forces are seen as both wanting to secure a battleground victory and each side has received support from outside players.
The UN human rights chief Volker Turk this week separately spoke to Lt. General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, president of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, Commander of the Rapid Support Forces.
“He urged them both to act immediately — and publicly — to de-escalate the situation,” UN human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said.
Children among dead as Israeli forces widen attacks on Hezbollah
- Southern Lebanon faces ‘escalating violence,’ army veteran tells Arab News
- US Embassy joins calls for a new Lebanese president to ‘unite the nation’
BEIRUT: Two children from a Syrian refugee family and a Hezbollah fighter were killed when Israeli airstrikes on Friday hit an area of southern Lebanon more than 30 km inside the border.
Israeli strikes targeted Najjariyeh and Addousiyeh, adjacent villages south of the coastal city of Sidon, killing the children and a Hezbollah fighter driving a pickup truck.
Hezbollah responded to the raids by firing dozens of rockets toward the upper Galilee, western Galilee, the Galilee panhandle, and the Golan.
Israeli media claimed that 140 rockets were fired toward the north of the country.
BACKGROUND
Hezbollah has traded cross-border fire with Israeli forces almost daily since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza, now in its eighth month.
Israeli forces and Hezbollah have expanded their hostilities, with both launching drone attacks deep into Lebanese territory and northern Israel.
Retired Brig. Gen. Khaled Hamadeh of the Lebanese Army said that the situation in southern Lebanon is “escalating toward more violent attacks.”
Hezbollah insists on linking a ceasefire in southern Lebanon to an end to hostilities in Gaza.
Hamadeh said that no efforts were being made to stop the clashes between Israel and Hezbollah, unlike the situation in Gaza.
In a statement, Hezbollah said it targeted Israel’s Tsnobar logistics base in the Golan with 50 Katyusha rockets in response to the strike on Najjarieh.
According to Israeli media, rocket salvos were aimed at military bases in Katzrin and areas north of Lake Tiberias.
Two people were injured in rocket blasts in Karam bin Zamra in the upper Galilee, media added.
CCTV cameras installed outside homes in Najjarieh showed an Israeli drone following the pickup truck as the driver, named as Hussein Khodor Mehdi, attempted to flee.
The first missile launched by the drone missed its target, but a second that struck the truck, setting it on fire and killing the driver. Three onlookers were also injured.
Hezbollah said that Mehdi, 62, was “martyred on the road to Jerusalem.”
Israeli Army Radio said the victim was a senior commander in the Hezbollah air force.
It claimed that the army planes shelled Hezbollah’s infrastructure in Najjarieh.
The second airstrike targeted a congregation hall and a cement factory, wounding several members of a Syrian refugee family. Two children, Osama and Hani Al-Khaled, later died from their injuries.
Hezbollah said it targeted the Al-Raheb military site with artillery and Israeli positions in Al-Zaoura with a salvo of Katyusha rockets.
According to a security source, Hezbollah’s latest targets included surveillance balloons near Tiberias and Adamit in the Galilee.
Early on Friday, Hezbollah attacked the newly established headquarters of the 411th Artillery Battalion in Kibbutz Jaatoun, east of Nahariyya, with drones in response to the Israeli killing of two Hezbollah fighters, Ali Fawzi Ayoub, 26, and Mohammed Hassan Ali Fares, 34, the previous day.
In his Friday sermon, Sheikh Mohammed Yazbek, head of Hezbollah’s Shariah Council, said the group was “waging its fierce war on the north of Palestine, pursuing the enemy, blinding its espionage, and breaking what were once red lines, as well pursuing its soldiers in their hideouts until the war on Gaza stops.”
The US Embassy in Lebanon issued a warning over the conflict on the southern border and the presidential vacuum in the country.
Electing a president was crucial to ensuring Lebanon’s participation in regional discussions and future diplomatic agreements concerning its southern border, the embassy said.
Lebanon “needs and deserves a president who unites the nation, prioritizes the well-being of its citizens, and forms a broad and inclusive coalition to restore political stability and implement necessary economic reforms,” the statement added.
The ambassadors of Egypt, France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the US to Lebanon issued a statement this week warning of “the critical situation facing the Lebanese people and the difficult-to-manage repercussions on Lebanon’s economy and social stability due to the delay of necessary reforms.”
Israeli military finds bodies of 3 hostages in Gaza, including Shani Louk, killed at music festival
- A photo of the 22-year-old Shani’s twisted body in the back of a pickup truck ricocheted around the world
- The military identified the other two bodies found as those of a 28-year-old woman, Amit Buskila, and a56-year-old man, Itzhak Gelerenter
JERUSALEM: Israeli military says its troops in Gaza found the bodies of three Israeli hostages taken by Hamas during its Oct. 7 attack, including German-Israeli Shani Louk.
A photo of the 22-year-old Shani’s twisted body in the back of a pickup truck ricocheted around the world and brought to light the scale of the militants’ attack on communities in southern Israel.
The military identified the other two bodies found as those of a 28-year-old woman, Amit Buskila, and a56-year-old man, Itzhak Gelerenter. Military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said all three were killed by Hamas at the Nova music festival, an outdoor dance party near the Gaza border, and their bodies taken into the Palestinian territory.
The military did not give immediate details on where their bodies were found.
Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and abducted around 250 others in the Oct. 7 attack. Around half of those have since been freed, most in swaps for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel during a weeklong ceasefire in November.
Israel says around 100 hostages are still captive in Gaza, along with the bodies of around 30 more. Israel’s campaign in Gaza since the attack has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.
Iran arrests 3 Europeans at ‘Satanist’ gathering along with 260 others, Tasnim says
- Those detained comprised 146 men and 115 women and that alcohol and psychedelic drugs were seized.
DUBAI: Iranian security forces have arrested more than 260 people, including three European nationals, at a “Satanist” gathering west of the capital Tehran, the semi-official new agency Tasnim reported on Friday.
“Satanist network broken up in Tehran, arrests of three European nationals,” Tasnim wrote, adding that those detained comprised 146 men and 115 women and that alcohol — banned under Iran’s Islamic laws — and psychedelic drugs were seized.
The report did not give the nationality of the Europeans.
Spain PM will Wednesday announce date to recognize Palestinian state
- Sanchez said in March that Spain and Ireland, along with Slovenia and Malta had agreed to take the first steps toward recognition of a Palestinian state
MADRID: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Friday he will on Wednesday announce the date on which Madrid will recognize a Palestinian state along with other nations.
“We are in the process of coordinating with other countries,” he said during an interview with private Spanish television station La Sexta when asked if this step would be taken on Tuesday as announced by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
Sanchez said in March that Spain and Ireland, along with Slovenia and Malta had agreed to take the first steps toward recognition of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, seeing a two-state solution as essential for lasting peace.
Borrell told Spanish public radio last week that Spain, Ireland and Slovenia planned to symbolically recognize a Palestinian state on May 21, saying he had been given this date by Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares.
Ireland’s Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said Tuesday that Dublin was certain to recognize Palestinian statehood by the end of the month but the “specific date is still fluid.”
So far, 137 of the 193 UN member states have recognized a Palestinian state, according to figures provided by the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.
Despite the growing number of EU countries in favor of such a move, neither France nor Germany support the idea. Western powers have long argued such recognition should only happen as part of a negotiated peace with Israel.
