New documents: SAM Organization Reveals Torture of Yemenis in a Secret Saudi Prison in Hadhramout

YemenExtra

Y.A

SAM Organization for Rights and Liberties said it has documented torture of detainees at the first military zone prison in Seyun, Southeastern Yemen, under the control of the Saudi forces.

“The fate of tens of detainees who have gone through forced disappearance is unknown, while others have seen extended detention without trial and were denied proper treatment and family visits,” SAM said.

SAM has received information that the detainees are kept in the so-called “Atteen prison” which is an old abandoned prison since 2006 at Murima area in Seyun in Hadhramout about 500 feet far from the new prison. The detainees are interrogated for hours by Saudi interrogators supervised by Abu Salem and Al-Khaledi in addition to the commander of the first military zone

SAM indicated in the press release that most of the detainees who reported to SAM were detained by the first military zone without any judicial warrants or legal grounds and were detained from public streets or markets and made to disappear for about a year.

SAM received a complaint from one detainee who claimed that they’ve been treated like goats with no dignity. “We are insulted, beaten, and kept in solitary confinement, shocked by electricity, and sprayed with cold water in the winter,” he said, according to SAM.

One relative of a detainee who visited his detained relative said “when I visited him I found him in psychological trauma, with thin face and handcuffed since his detention date”.

SAM revealed that even children were detained and tortured in the first military zone prison, where Sami Faraj Al-Zabedi, 15, was detained, according to his father statement, and was beaten with iron cords and sticks, kept in cold water and was humiliated and abused.

In March 2015, two children Ghaleb Omar Ali,16, and Abdullah Wael Omar, 17, were also detained.

Relative of the children told SAM that they were in a bad psychological condition with skinny faces, handcuffed and were beaten severely and shocked by electricity.

SAM also received reports from the detainee’s relatives that they were not allowed to visit them, only after great suffer and follow-up at the first military zone commander, and the security commander.

One of the relatives told SAM that he was allowed to visit his son for half an hour during three years of detention.

SAM confirms that the detainee’s detention conditions is very bad, where some suffer diseases and tumors and never receive proper medication by the prison authorities, while their relatives are unaware of their condition due to denial of visits.

SAM revealed that the detainees went on a hunger strike twice, due to the bad conditions, demanding the Saudi-UAE coalition and the first military zone commander to refer them to the court, to remove the iron legs cuffs, allow family visits, and contact their families and provide needed medical care and improve food.

The detainees are exposed to torture, according to testimony SAM received from an ex detainee, who said that one day they protested one day, demanding the presence of the Saudi-led Coalition officer, but they were tortured by the military police force led by officers Mustafa Al-Muhya, and Abdullah Al-Ashwal instead.

In March 2015, the US -backed –Saudi-led coalition started  a war against Yemen with the declared aim of crushing the Houthi Ansarullah movement, who had taken over from the staunch Riyadh ally and fugitive former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, while also seeking to secure the Saudi border with its southern neighbor. Three years and over 600,000 dead and injured Yemeni people and  prevented the patients from travelling abroad for treatment and blocked the entry of medicine into the war-torn country, the war has yielded little to that effect.

Despite the coalition claims that it is bombing the positions of the Ansarullah fighters, Saudi bombers are flattening residential areas and civilian infrastructures.

More than 2,200 others have died of cholera, and the crisis has triggered what the United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.

However, Saudi Arabia relies heavily on the US in its brutal war on Yemen. Washington has deployed a commando force on the Arab kingdom’s border with Yemen to help destroy arms belonging to Yemen’s popular Houthi Ansarullah movement. Washington has also provided logistical support and aerial refueling.

Source:NTHNEWS

The photo is from the archive