Archive: yemen
17th May 2016
Saudi Arabia is not only denying that its forces have committed war crimes in Yemen; it is now also denying that human rights organisations have been on the ground investigating them.
Interviewed on NPR radio yesterday, General Ahmad Asiri, spokesman for the Saudi-led military coalition, was asked … Read more
26th April 2016
Renouncing Islam is a crime punishable by death in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. In practice, though, the law isn't implemented nowadays. On the rare occasions that an apostasy case comes to court, the accused person is usually allowed to flee the country or… Read more
6th December 2015
The assassination of the governor of Aden this morning places a further huge question mark over the Gulf states' strategy in Yemen. Major-General Jaafar Mohammad Saad, who was appointed governor less than two months ago, died along with several others when his car was blown up as he travelled to… Read more
2nd December 2015
Simmering differences between Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who is still widely described as Yemen's president, and Khaled Bahah, the man he appointed as vice-president and prime minister, turned into an open rift yesterday when Hadi announced a cabinet reshuffle and Bahah rejected the changes.
Bahah,… Read more
9th April 2015
For most practical purposes the Republic of Yemen no longer exists. Whether it can ever be reassembled into a single state is, to put it mildly, doubtful – though that appears to be the objective of the Saudi-led military intervention.
Even in more peaceful times the writ of central government… Read more
6th April 2015
Prompted by the current turmoil in Yemen, I decided to search the old WikiLeaks files for US embassy cables discussing the Houthis.
There are 284 documents with the keyword "Houthi", covering a period from August 2004 (during the first brief war between the… Read more
1st April 2015
There was a very informative and wide-ranging discussion of the situation in Yemen earlier today, which I had the privilege of chairing. It was organised by CAABU, the Council for Arab-British Understanding. The speakers were Abubakr al-Shamahi, a British-Yemeni journalist, and Baraa Shiban… Read more
30th March 2015
The words "Iranian-backed" and "Houthi" are now coupled together in virtually every media report about the conflict in Yemen. Nobody – least of all, the Iranians – would deny that Iran supports the Houthis. But how extensive is that support and what forms does it take?
Where some kinds of support… Read more
13th January 2015
In what appears to be yet another blow against religious tolerance, an Iranian member of the Bah'ai faith is to go on trial in Yemen – charged with spying for Israel.
The Yemeni government news agency, Saba, reports that 51-year-old Hamid Mirza Kamali Srostani, was arrested last year in the… Read more
17th October 2014
One of the less-discussed effects of political turmoil in Yemen over the last few years has been the proliferation of media. Despite widespread illiteracy, Yemen now has around 90 newspapers published weekly or more often and the state's monopoly on broadcasting has been broken; there are several… Read more
ARAB ART ONLINE: Susan Hefuna: Al Sabr Gamil (Patience is Beautiful) 2007. Ink stained on wood 140 x 170 cm. More information | Click to enlarge
