Houthis target Yemeni activists advocating for public salaries

The Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists reported on Tuesday that a Houthi-affiliated armed group brutally attacked Majili Al-Samadi, head of Voice of Yemen radio, outside his home in Sanaa’s Al-Safia district on Aug. 24. (Facebook)
Short Url
Updated 30 August 2023
Follow

Houthis target Yemeni activists advocating for public salaries

  • The Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists reported on Tuesday that a Houthi-affiliated armed group brutally attacked Majili Al-Samadi, head of Voice of Yemen radio
  • Sharing images of his bruised face and bleeding mouth on social media, Al-Samadi said that armed men severely beat him for posting on social media

AL-MUKALLA: Human rights activists in Yemen and international rights groups have condemned the Houthis for mercilessly assaulting a journalist based in Sanaa and sending death threats to Yemeni activists and politicians who support the intensifying public demand for the Houthis to pay state employees.
The Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists reported on Tuesday that a Houthi-affiliated armed group brutally attacked Majili Al-Samadi, head of Voice of Yemen radio, outside his home in Sanaa’s Al-Safia district on Aug. 24. The IFJ demanded that the Houthis bring the perpetrators to justice and cease harassing journalists. “We condemn the brutal attack on our colleague Majili Al-Samadi and all attempts to silence his critical reporting,” IFJ Secretary-General Anthony Bellanger said in a statement posted on the organization’s website.
Sharing images of his bruised face and bleeding mouth on social media, Al-Samadi said that armed men severely beat him for posting on social media. He vowed to continue challenging the Houthis until they pay him. “During my return, a band of five individuals beat me outside my house in Al-Safia and threatened to do more if I did not stop writing,” he said on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
Hours before the attack, Al-Samadi posted on social media demanding that the Houthis pay his salary. “My rights and my salary … before the Prophet … The Prophet does not need me!! I need my salary,” he said in the post.
Indirectly claiming responsibility for the attack, the Houthis accused him of profaning the Prophet Muhammad in the post.
Al-Samadi’s radio station in Sanaa was ransacked by armed men in 2022 for refusing to transmit the sectarian choruses of the militia.
Activists based in Houthi-controlled Sanaa and others residing outside Yemen have reported receiving death threats from Houthi-affiliated figures for demanding that the Houthis pay state employees in areas under their control and condemning the assaults on journalist Al-Samadi.
Ahmed Hashed, an outspoken member of the Houthi-controlled parliament, said that he has received numerous death threats from Houthi figures for exposing the corruption of Houthi leaders and supporting the salary demands of public employees. “I hold the leader of Ansar Allah and the authority of the Ansar group entirely responsible for my life and the safety … The authority in Sanaa incites (the populace) against us and seeks retribution for our opposition to corruption and our demand for the reinstatement of the salaries of teachers and employees whose pay has been reduced for many years,” Hashed said on X, using the official name of the Houthis. In one of the messages, Hashed said, a Houthi figure threatened: “If Majili Al-Samadi loses a tooth, you will lose both your mouth and your tongue.”
The Houthis have also threatened to target relatives of Yemeni activists who reside outside of their territories in retaliation for their criticism. Exiled Yemeni activist Ibrahim Asqin stated that the Houthis had threatened to target his relatives in his home province of Ibb if he did not cease criticizing them and supporting public employee salaries. “A group that cannot tolerate censure of many of its practices from its opponents is too fragile and weak to lead the people,” Asqin said on X. Asqin is well-known for exposing human rights violations committed by Houthi figures in the province of Ibb and for publishing videos and photographs depicting armed Houthis plundering lands and assaulting people.
The Houthis are facing rising public pressure to pay thousands of government employees who have not been paid since 2016. Since early 2022, the pressure has increased amid reports that the Houthis have generated billions of riyals in revenue from the port of Hodeidah as a result of an increase in the number of ships during the UN-brokered cease-fire.
The Houthis have asked that Yemen’s internationally recognized government pay public employees from oil sales, while the government has said that it will only pay public employees if the Houthis deposit revenue from Hodeidah port into the central bank.
Nadwa Al-Dawsari, a Yemeni conflict analyst and a non-resident fellow at the Middle East Institute, said that Houthi leaders have become increasingly wealthy over the past eight years, as they have amassed immense sums of revenue despite the extreme poverty of the public workforce. “The Houthis are not interested in governing, which would entail them actually providing services including salary payment. The Houthis’ model is largely based on population control through repression and violence,” she said.
She did not rule out the possibility that the Houthis would restart the war in Yemen in order to avoid public pressure. “Now that the Saudis have stopped their airstrikes and lifted restrictions on Hodeidah seaport, the Houthis are running out of excuses (to pay public employees). I would not be surprised if they escalate militarily in order to force these protests to stop.”


Turkiye man kills seven before taking his own life

Updated 2 sec ago
Follow

Turkiye man kills seven before taking his own life

Istanbul: A 33-year-old Turkish man shot dead seven people in Istanbul on Sunday, including his parents, his wife and his 10-year-old son, before taking his own life, the authorities reported on Monday.
The man, who was found dead in his car shortly after the shooting, is also accused of wounding two other family members, one of them seriously, the Istanbul governor’s office said in a statement.
The authorities, who had put the death toll at four on Sunday evening, announced on Monday the discovery near a lake on Istanbul’s European shore of the bodies of the killer’s wife and son, as well as the lifeless body of his mother-in-law.
According to the Small Arms Survey (SAS), a Swiss research program, over 13.2 million firearms are in circulation in Turkiye, most of them illegally, for a population of around 85 million.

2 Palestinians killed in Israeli raid in West Bank: PA

Updated 7 min 26 sec ago
Follow

2 Palestinians killed in Israeli raid in West Bank: PA

  • The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli forces entered the village on Sunday night

Yabad: The Palestinian Authority said two Palestinians, including a teenage boy, were killed during an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank village of Yabad.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli forces entered the village on Sunday night, leading to clashes during which soldiers shot dead two Palestinians.
The two dead were identified by the Palestinian health ministry as Muhammad Rabie Hamarsheh, 13, and Ahmad Mahmud Zaid, 20.
“Overnight, during an IDF (Israeli army) counterterrorism activity in the area of Yabad, two terrorists hurled explosives at IDF soldiers. The soldiers responded with fire and hits were identified,” an Israeli military source told AFP.
Last week, the Israeli army launched several raids in the West Bank city of Jenin, killing nine people, most of them Palestinian militants.
Violence in the West Bank has soared since the war in Gaza erupted on October 7 last year after Hamas’s attack on Israel.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 777 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Ramallah-based health ministry.
Palestinian attacks on Israelis have also killed at least 24 people in the West Bank in the same period, according to Israeli official figures.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.


Israel says hit Hezbollah command center in deadly weekend strike

Updated 44 min 45 sec ago
Follow

Israel says hit Hezbollah command center in deadly weekend strike

  • The strike hit a residential building in the heart of Beirut before dawn Saturday
  • Since September 23, Israel has intensified its Lebanon air campaign

JERUSALEM: The Israeli army on Monday said it had struck a Hezbollah command center in the downtown Beirut neighborhood of Basta in a deadly air strike at the weekend.
“The IDF (Israeli military) struck a Hezbollah command center,” the army said regarding the strike that the Lebanese health ministry said killed 29 people and wounded 67 on Saturday.
The strike hit a residential building in the heart of Beirut before dawn Saturday, leaving a large crater, AFP journalists at the scene reported.
A senior Lebanese security source said that “a high-ranking Hezbollah officer was targeted” in the strike, without confirming whether or not the official had been killed.
Hezbollah official Amin Cherri said no leader of the Lebanese movement was targeted in Basta.
Since September 23, Israel has intensified its Lebanon air campaign, later sending in ground troops against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
The war followed nearly a year of limited exchanges of fire initiated by Hezbollah in support of its ally Hamas after the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the Gaza war.
The conflict has killed at least 3,754 people in Lebanon since October 2023, according to the health ministry, most of them since September this year.
On the Israeli side, authorities say at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians have been killed.


HRW says Israel strike that killed 3 Lebanon journalists ‘apparent war crime’

Updated 25 November 2024
Follow

HRW says Israel strike that killed 3 Lebanon journalists ‘apparent war crime’

BEIRUT: Human Rights Watch said on Monday an Israeli air strike that killed three journalists in Lebanon last month was an “apparent war crime” and used a bomb equipped with a US-made guidance kit.
The October 25 strike hit a tourism complex in the Druze-majority south Lebanon town of Hasbaya where more than a dozen journalists working for Lebanese and Arab media outlets were sleeping.
The Israeli army has said it targeted Hezbollah militants and that the strike was “under review.”
HRW said the strike, relatively far from the Israel-Hezbollah war’s main flashpoints, “was most likely a deliberate attack on civilians and an apparent war crime.”
“Information Human Rights Watch reviewed indicates that the Israeli military knew or should have known that journalists were staying in the area and in the targeted building,” the watchdog said in a statement.
HRW “found no evidence of fighting, military forces, or military activity in the immediate area at the time of the attack,” it added.
The strike killed cameraman Ghassan Najjar and broadcast engineer Mohammad Reda from pro-Iran, Beirut-based broadcaster Al-Mayadeen and video journalist Wissam Qassem from Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television.
The watchdog said it verified images of Najjar’s casket wrapped in a Hezbollah flag and buried in a cemetery alongside fighters from the militant group.
But a spokesperson for the militant group said he “had no involvement whatsoever in any military activities.”
HRW said the bomb dropped by Israeli forces was equipped with a United States-produced Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kit.
The JDAM is “affixed to air-dropped bombs and allows them to be guided to a target by using satellite coordinates,” the statement said.
It said remnants from the site were consistent with a JDAM kit “assembled and sold by the US company Boeing.”
One remnant “bore a numerical code identifying it as having been manufactured by Woodard, a US company that makes components for guidance systems on munitions,” it added.
The watchdog said it contacted Boeing and Woodard but received no response.
In October last year, Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah was killed by Israeli shellfire while he was covering southern Lebanon, and six other journalists were wounded, including AFP’s Dylan Collins and Christina Assi, who had to have her right leg amputated.
In November last year, Israeli bombardment killed Al-Mayadeen correspondent Farah Omar and cameraman Rabih Maamari, the channel said.
Lebanese rights groups have said five more journalists and photographers working for local media have been killed in Israeli strikes on the country’s south and Beirut’s southern suburbs.


16 survivors rescued after tourist boat sinks off Egypt’s Red Sea coast

Updated 10 min 34 sec ago
Follow

16 survivors rescued after tourist boat sinks off Egypt’s Red Sea coast

CAIRO: Egyptian authorities rescued 16 people after a tourist boat sank off its Red Sea coast, three security sources told Reuters on Monday, as search operations continued for the remaining passengers and crew members.
The boat, Sea Story, was carrying 45 people, including 31 tourists of varying nationalities and 14 crew, on a multi-day diving trip when it went down near the coastal town of Marsa Alam, according to a statement by the Red Sea Governorate.
Governor Amr Hanafi said some survivors were rescued using a helicopter and have been taken to medical care. Efforts to locate more survivors were ongoing in coordination with the Egyptian navy and army.
The governorate said a distress call was received at 5:30 a.m. (0330 GMT) and that the boat had departed from Porto Ghalib in Marsa Alam on Sunday, with plans to return to Hurghada Marina on Nov. 29.
The Red Sea is a popular diving destination renowned for its coral reefs and marine life, key to Egypt’s vital tourism industry.