Amnesty International, news sources
Edited excerpts by Carolyn Bennett
“It is particularly worrying that states such as Saudi Arabia and the USA are directly or indirectly aiding the Yemeni government in a downward spiral away from previously improving human rights record,” Amnesty reported today.
“An extremely worrying trend has developed where the Yemeni authorities, under pressure from the USA and others to fight al-Qa’ida [al-Qaeda], and Saudi Arabia to deal with the Huthis, have been citing national security as a pretext to deal with opposition and stifle all criticism.”
The number of death sentences passed in trials of people accused of having links to al-Qa’ida [al-Qaeda], or to the Huthi armed group has noticeably increased. In 2009, at least 34 people accused of links to Huthi armed groups were sentenced to death.
The security forces have killed at least 113 people since 2009 in operations the government says target ‘terrorists.’ Attacks have become more frequent since December 2009 with security forces in some cases making no attempt to detain suspects before killing them.
At least 41 people were killed, 21 of them children and 14 of them women, on December 17, 2009, when their settlement in al-Ma’jalah area in the southern district of Abyan was hit by missiles.
“All measures taken in the name of countering terrorism or other security challenges in Yemen must have at its heart the protection of human rights.”
“The Yemeni authorities have a duty to ensure public safety and to bring to justice those engaged in attacks that deliberately target members of the public, but when doing so they must abide by international law. … Enforced disappearances, torture and other ill-treatment, and extrajudicial executions are never permissible, and the Yemeni authorities must immediately cease these violations.”
Reports from Yemen today
Yemeni officials were reported saying Yemen’s army has killed 12 anti-government fighters and retaken control of a southern town after several days of fighting. The reports late yesterday said the army had begun its assault on the town of Loder after a Friday ambush left 11 soldiers dead.
Sources and notes
Yemen abandons human rights in the name of countering terrorism” (quoted Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s Director for the Middle East and North Africa Programme), © Amnesty International, the Yemeni security forces have killed at least 113 people since 2009, © ASSOCIATED PRESS, August 25, 2010, http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/yemen-abandons-human-rights-name-countering-terrorism-2010-08-24
“Yemen kills ‘al-Qaeda fighters,’” August 25, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/08/2010825132359773721.html
Geopolitical implications
[U. S. in Middle East and S/Central Asia, Horn of Africa region)
YEMEN
Yemen (officially Republic of Yemen, Arabic Al-Yaman or Al-Jumhūrīyah al-Yamanīyah) is situated at the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula.
Most of Yemen’s northern frontier with Saudi Arabia traverses the great desert of the peninsula and remains without demarcation, as does the eastern frontier with Oman. In the west and the south, Yemen is bounded by the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, respectively.
Its territory includes a number of islands including the Kamaran group located in the Red Sea near Al-Ḥudaydah; Perim (Barīm) in the Bab el-Mandeb, which separates the Arabian Peninsula from Africa; the most important and largest island, Socotra (Suqutrā), located in the Arabian Sea nearly 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) east of Aden; and The Brothers, small islets near Socotra.
The present Yemen came into being in May 1990, when the former Yemen Arab Republic, or North Yemen, merged with the former People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, also called South Yemen [Britannica notes].
ARABIA
Arabic (“Island of the Arabs”) is a peninsular region together with offshore islands located in the extreme southwestern corner of Asia.
The Arabian Peninsula is bounded by the Red Sea on the west and southwest, the Gulf of Aden on the south, the Arabian Sea on the south and southeast, and the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf (also called the Arabian Gulf) on the northeast. Geographically the peninsula and the Syrian Desert merge in the north with no clear line of demarcation, but the northern boundaries of Saudi Arabia and of Kuwait are generally taken as marking the limit of Arabia there.
The peninsula’s total area is about 1,000,000 square miles (2,590,000 square kilometers). The length, bordering the Red Sea, is approximately 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) and the maximum breadth, from Yemen to Oman, 1,300 miles.
The largest political division is Saudi Arabia followed, in order of size, by Yemen, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain.
The island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean, about 200 miles southeast of the mainland, has strong ethnographic links to Arabia; politically it is part of Yemen [Britannica notes].
No comments:
Post a Comment