Yemeni Lawyer Honored for Exposing Secret UAE Prisons

Date: 22 February 2020 - 22:54

News ID: ۷۶۴۱۲

SANAA (Dispatches) – A Yemeni lawyer has won the prestigious Martin Ennals Award for 2020 in recognition of her efforts to uncover a network of secret prisons run by the UAE in southern Yemen where prisoners are held and tortured without legal grounds.
Huda Al-Sarari, 42, received her award in Geneva, Switzerland.
"Being a human rights defender in Yemen is extremely challenging, and being a woman makes this even more difficult. In a male-dominated society, I have to prove myself maybe ten times more than a man,” Huda said.
"Receiving the 2020 Martin Ennals Award for human rights defenders means the world to me. It gives me great strength and emboldens me to continue this fight for justice,” she continued.
In 2019, gunmen shot and killed Al-Sarari’s son during a human rights protest in Yemen’s Aden.
Founded in 1993, the award is given by ten of the most prominent human rights bodies, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the World Organization Against Torture and the International Commission of Jurists.
Various non-governmental organizations and Yemeni activists also confirmed the existence of the prison inside a military base set up by the UAE in the same place.
In 2018, a report by the Associated Press revealed that hundreds of detainees have suffered torture and sexual abuse by Emirati officers at the jails which the UAE runs in war-torn Yemen.
Citing victims and witnesses, the AP reported that the detainees, who are held without charge, have been sodomized, raped, probed and stripped down in at least five prisons.
Amnesty International said it had also documented "systematic grave violations” in UAE-run jails in Yemen. The group called the AP report "shocking,” saying U.S. officials "continue to dismiss these credible allegations.”
Militants backed by the UAE have reportedly kidnapped and tortured hundreds of people in southern Yemen.
The kidnapping spree took place under the pretext of clearing out suspected al-Qaeda-linked elements.
The United Arab Emirates is Saudi Arabia’s key partner in its deadly war against Yemen, which was launched in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of Hadi back to power and crushing the Houthi movement.
The U.S.-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, estimates that the Saudi war has claimed more than 100,000 lives over the past four and a half years.