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The organisation known as the People's Organisation for Support of the Detainees, in which Alkarama representatives and the organisations Hood and Prisoner participated, the protestors lifted pictures of those arbitrarily detained in the context of the "War on Terror".
The president of the Political Security forces, General Ghalib Al-Qamish, met with a delegation of members of the detainees' families and with representatives of human rights organisations, promising to release all the detainees and form an investigative committee which would include representatives from the families to investigate the situation regarding allegations of maltreatment inside Sanaa's Political Security Prison.
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In Aden, south Yemen, the families of those arbitrarily detained in the "War on Terror" organised a similar protest in front of the Prosecutor General's office in Khor Mukassar, demanding the release of their relatives imprisoned by the authorities in Al-Mansoura Central Prison, and in Al-Fath and Al-Tawahi, prisons belonging to the Political Security administration.
The Political Security forces have imprisoned hundreds of people under the pretext of the "War on Terror", yet none of these detainees have been brought to trial and do not enjoy any legal protection. Among them are about 200 detainees in the main detention centre in Sanaa, 24 people in Al Mansoura central prison in Aden, about 15 others in the Fath and Tawahi prisons also in Aden, more than 60 in the Hadramaut governorate in the southeast, and more than 50 people in the Al Hadida branch office in the west, along with tens of people in Lahaj and Taizz and Ibb and other places.
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The families of those detained in the context of the "War on Terror", have the support of various human rights organisations and are demand the immediate release of all those detained by Political Security through Yemen.
The victims' families have requested that all sentences issued by the Penal Court against some of these detainees be cancelled, "considering that the sentences were issued by an illegal court which is entirely at the whim of the security apparatus. These sentences were not only unjust but are essentially built not upon legal evidence formulated from imaginary confessions extracted under duress and without a lawyer or the right to defense.
In the same context, the detainees' families demanded an immediate, transparent investigation into the allegations of "barbaric maltreatment" of their sons and brothers imprisoned in the Political Security detention centre in Sanaa on 6 February 2011, when riot police and Political Security forces, attacked the detainees "resulting in serious injuries." According to sources, the detainees were also shocked with electric batons until many of them fainted and some of them were taken to hospital in a very serious state."
They also demanded that all those involved in committing these crimes be held accountable and brought before an open court.
The two organisations Hood (in Sanaa) and Alkarama (in Geneva) stated in a joint announcement last week that at least ten of the prisoners of
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State Security in Sanaa were taken to hospital in a very bad state of health, having been beaten hard in prison by riot police.
The two organisations also noted that the detainees' families had said that the detainees showed their families, during their visits, signs of torture on their bodies, while prisoners reported that security forces used wooden clubs to beat them and electric batons to stop them from moving, then took many of them to a government hospital for treatment.
The detainees' families also indicated that their relatives detained in the Political Security prison in Sanaa were undertaking an open-ended hunger strike and refusing visits since the beginning of the month. The detainees are protesting against the circumstances of their imprisonment and the fact that most of them are being kept in prison without trial for prolonged periods, in some cases as much as five years. Many of the detainees are being held hostage en lieu of other people wanted in connection with "terrorist" cases, let alone the inhuman way their families were treated when they asked to visit.
The announcement issued by the People's Organisation for Support of the Detainees also called for an investigation into what they term as: crimes of arbitrary arrest and detention; night raids and violent incursions; violations of the privacy of homes. They also demanded for these practice to stop.
They also petitioned the Yemeni authorities to "end the detention of people under the pretext of precautionary measures, leading to imprisonment without trial, and to end the hostage system based on imprisoning relatives of the wanted person in order to pressure them into giving themselves up."
The detainees' families also called for the repeal of the "prosecutions and courts contrary to law and justice, and for an end to their use to whitewash human rights violations against the victims."
They also asserted the need for "a serious and immediate handover of the Yemeni detainees in Guantanamo and Bagram Prison (Afghanistan), who have spent more than 9 years there, and of all the Yemenis detained in Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iraq; particularly Hasna Bint Ali Husayn."
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