VIDEO ـ Ex-inmate reveal secrets of torture in Houthi prisonsـPart 2

Ma'rib,Yemen – 14 April 2019: The cases of Houthi torture in Yemen are endless, however, one case, in particular, does attract one’s attention.

Anas Al-Sarari, Director of the Association of Hope for the Disabled, and one of the victims of torture in the prison of the Houthis, is paralyzed as a result of Houthis’s systematic torture.

To understand more about the torture in Houthi prisons, we sat down with Sarari.





What is the cause of your injury?

I suffer from Hemiparesis, as a result of torture in Houthi prisons.

Tell us you story

I was a student in the fourth year of civil engineering and I hope to complete my education and then establish my own business or project. On September 1, 2015, while I was walk on a street in Sana'a I heard the sound of a 4x4 car, then someone came from my back and hit me on my head and I lost conscious, When I arrived at the Political Security Prison, I was blindfolded.

I woke up to them kicking me.

I was tortured for two months.

I was tortured intensively every day and I was investigated for most of the day.

The same questions were repeated. I have been asked about my publications on Facebook for years ago and why I oppose them, in addition to many other questions. They forced me to stamp on papers before I open my eyes.

How were you arrested and charged?

Since the Houthis entered Sana'a, their concern is to shut people up, and kill and arrest anyone who oppose them and their believes. Their ideology is not accepted by our minds. They put me in their prisons because I was a social activist who raised many issues and defended those who have rights.

They charged me with disrespect to Al Bait.

What kinds of torture have been committed against you?

I was beaten for two months, day and night, with the electric sticks, and hanged; this is the most used method by them. They hang the person by his hands to the wall and leave a distance between them and the ground so they cannot stand. It is unbearable.

One day during the torture sessions, I was beaten with a stick on the back of my head. I was in a coma for a long time. When I got up I found myself lying on the ground in a prison. I tried to stand on my feet but I did not know what happened. On the hospital, and after they make sure that I was paralyzed they released me after I spent about 9 months.




How did you spend this period and did they force you to read Shi'a curricula?

The first two months were divided into a day of torture and a rest day. The investigation began from 10 am to 6 am the next day. They put me for the first three months in solitary confinement, and the food was either rice mixed with insects or beans with sewage water.

They brought me books and assigned a person named Abu Aqeel to teach me these materials, which are based on the Shiite ideology and doctrines, and to holy Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, and Al Bait. They say consider Aisha - may Allah be pleased with her - an adulterous. They say in their books that Umar ibn al-Khattab and Abu Bakr intimidated Ibn Abi Talib and made him abandon the ruling in the incident of the son of Beni Saad, calling him "the chefs" and calling the Prophet "Al-Uzza", aiming to encourage recruiting. They discredit Khomeini and Hassan Nasrallah, say that the revelation of Quraan was supposed to go to Ali Ibn Abi Taleb and went wrongly to the Prophet. That was taught to the recruited children.

I paid $ 1,000 to Houthi brokers to let my brother escape, so they do not recruit him.

Have any of those who were in the cell with you become disabled?

They were fifteen, some of them had broken their hands and some had their eyes cut out. Some of them were sexually assaulted with a plastic stick from the back as a kind of torture, and the injured person was then hanged instead of beaten.

Has anyone in your family been imprisoned or tortured?

Yes, they arrested my brother while he was trying to find me. But I noticed that they always separate brothers or the father and his son if they were imprisoned at the same time. I went out and he is still with them. This is a technique followed by Houthis: Before they release a person, they imprison another one from his family or relatives to guarantee his silence and therefore those released are still threatened as if he had not been released.

Many told us about their exploitation of the kidnapped and the bodies of those who die in prison to get the money. Did you come across this?

Yes, this is a big investment for them, especially the prisoners. Each prisoner has a price ,according to the value of the person; the leaders are for 4 million riyals and the ordinary person from one million to one and a half million, in addition to the commission of brokers.

Have you seen any of the UN organizations visit prisoners?

The UN does not pay us attention. The only time the United Nations visited prisons was when a British citizen was arrested.

I see a shameful role for international organizations. They support the Houthis and supply them with cranes.

Describe the living conditions of the people of Sana’a?

Everyone shuts their mouth, and is humiliated and cannot talk or even just ask about something, for example the gas tank cost was 1,500 a year ago while today is 8,000. People are silent, although the transportation almost completely stopped. Their children die before their eyes due to the lack of medicines and stopping medical care for the poor, yet still silent. Any person from Sana'a is forbidden to travel except with a written permission from the Houthis, and it must be for important and convincing reason for them. Every lane has a Houthi Sheikh who informs the Houthi’s leaders of any information on the movements of anyone in the neighborhood under his control.



There are also supervises who report on every person they have. In other words, it is an integrated system to tighten the grip on the people in Sana'a. No one also can go out at evening, otherwise, "depending on your luck" you may be arrested, assaulted, or whatever.

Tell us about the Association of Hope for the Disabled?

We aim to integrate the disabled into the society and to provide them with psychological, health and social care and to encourage them to join the labor market, rather than being a burden on the community. It is through this association that we organize different courses for the training of the disabled. For the Houthis, 50 of them were victims of the Marib, Shabwa and Baidaa mines. We have also the Katyusha victims and the victims of random bombings after the war. For example, in Marib there were 25 random bombings of civilians.


We are trying, in cooperation with the legitimate government, to provide training centers for these disabled people to rehabilitate the labor market and create opportunities or small projects in which they can work. We try to make the government pass legislation in favor of those disabled, such as to allocate of 5 percent of state jobs for them.


This report is a part of a series of investigative report ,”Yemen: War Atrocities in the Land of Fear”A 30 ـ Day, by Iman Hanna .Hanna has taken a 30-day trip to monitor the suffering of the people during the war .