Mission & Justice

Hammoud Mounassar; 18/9/08

Islamist militants attacked the US embassy in Yemen with a car bomb and rockets yesterday, leaving 16 people dead in the second strike on the high-security compound in six months. The toll included six Yemeni soldiers, six attackers and four civilians, including an Indian, the Interior Ministry said. Witnesses said gunmen raked a police detachment outside the heavily fortified embassy compound in the capital, Sanaa, before a suicide bomber blew up a car at the entrance, setting off a fireball. A series of explosions followed as the compound came under rocket and small-arms fire. A group calling itself Islamic Jihad in Yemen said in a statement sent to news agencies that it carried out the attack and threatened similar strikes against the British, Saudi and United Arab Emirates missions in the capital.

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Nasser Arrabyee; 10/9/08

The reconstruction efforts in Sa’ada cannot continue unless Al Houthi rebels relinquish their positions in the mountains, Yemeni Deputy Prime Minister for Defence and Security Affairs, Rashad Al Alimi said. He accused the rebels of intending to continue the war, which has wreaked havoc in the Sa’ada area and cost the government over $50 million (Dh183.5 million) for reconstruction. “Despite the fact that the government troops have withdrawn nearly all positions, the Al Houthi groups are still building fortifications and taking over new positions,” he said.

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Nasser Arrabyee; 5/9/08

A total of 12,930 displaced families including more 90,000 people returned to their villages and homes in Sa’ada after the war stopped, officials said recently. About 3,274 displaced families (about 30,000 people) are still in refuge areas waiting to return, deputy minister of local administration, Jafar Hamed, said at a meeting with foreign donors. About 6,000 homes, 900 farms, 80 schools, five health centres and three agriculture guidance centres were damaged during the war, the official said in a report at the meeting.

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Nasser Arrabyee, 28/8/08

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said that religious extremism was behind the recent terrorist attacks in his country. “What happened in Hudhrmout, Sana’a, and Mareb was a result of the extremist and irresponsible religious discourse that calls everyone infidels and considers all moderates hypocrites,” Saleh said, during an address to about 500 mosque speakers in a meeting held in Sana’a on Wednesday. The meeting, which was organised by the ruling party, called for the rejection of extremism and fanaticism and for mosque speakers to be kept away from politics.

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Nasser Arrabyee; 27/8/08

About 600,000 children do hazardous work in Yemen, said a report prepared by the child parliament in cooperation with Unicef and the Swedish organisation, Save Children.The report said that the hazardous work includes carrying stones, carpentry and car repair workshops. The reasons behind such practices are poverty, family break-ups and failed marriages, said the report that called for finding solutions for the child labour.

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20/8/08

Yemeni police have detained at least nine people this year for converting from Islam to Christianity, a security official said yesterday. The nine were arrested between May and early August and remain in custody, said the official. Converting from Islam to any other religion is illegal in Yemen and can be punishable by death. But in previous cases, those arrested were released after they revoked their new faith and pledged to return to Islam. Three of the nine were detained west of the capital, Sanaa, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. He declined to provide details about the others. Separately, police detained six Iranians accused of being members of a rebel group.

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Nasser Arrabyee; 13/8/08

Sana’a: A human rights activist called on Tuesday for a council to protect Yemeni women from tribal and religious extremists who are trying to exclude women from public life. Huriah Mashhoor, vice-chairperson of the National Committee of Women, a pro-government NGO, said a coordination council to support women in running for upcoming parliamentary elections in April 2009 is needed. “The council should be made up of representatives of civil society, political parties, and the media with the objective of furthering the quota system for women in elections,” Mashhoor told Gulf News.

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Nasser Arrabyee; 20/7/08

The Yemen Women’s Union has demanded Parliament condemn a recent religious fatwa banning women from political participation and running for seats in parliament. “We want parliament to explicitly condemn such a fatwa because it is a confiscation of personal and public freedom,” Ramziah Al Eryani, chairperson of the Yemen Women Union, told Gulf News.Al Eryani said a meeting with the speaker of parliament and a number of Members of Parliament (MPs) to discuss the issue was scheduled to take place on Sunday but was postponed because of the speaker’s other commitments.

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Nasser Arrabyee; 16/7/08; See: http://www.gulfnews.com/news/gulf/yemen/10229323.html

A group of Yemeni clerics warned women from getting out of their homes. The order, they claim, is to protect society from “vice and sexual chaos”. The clerics also said that political role for women contradicts Islamic values. “We warn against opening the door for women, who will get out of their houses and mix with men,” the clerics stated in a booklet distributed during a meeting. “Women getting out of their houses and mixing with men in places of work will lead to non-marital relations … loss of decency, adultery and illegal children,” the booklet said.

9/7/08

Iraq will not accept any security agreement with the United States unless it includes dates for the withdrawal of foreign forces, the government’s national security adviser said on Tuesday. The comments by Mowaffaq Al Rubaie underscore the US-backed government’s hardening stance towards a deal with Washington that will provide a legal basis for US troops to operate when a UN mandate expires at the end of the year. On Monday, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki appeared to catch Washington off-guard by suggesting for the first time that a timetable be set for the departure of US forces under the deal being negotiated, which he called a memorandum of understanding. Rubaie said Iraq was waiting “impatiently for the day when the last foreign soldier leaves Iraq”. “We can’t have a memorandum of understanding with foreign forces unless it has dates and clear horizons determining the departure of foreign forces. We’re unambiguously talking about their departure,” Rubaie said in the holy Shiite city of Najaf.

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