Rape or Suicide in UAE Prisons in Yemen: Report
YemenExtra
Malak Ali
In a new scandal of horrific UAE violations of civilians in Yemen, a report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said that UAE officers raped many detainees in Yemen.
The report revealed that sexual violence was carried out with different tools, in addition to the fact that the conditions of the detainees in the detention centers were terrible, and that the rape cases were also carried out by the security forces in front of other detainees, including members of the detainee’s family and the guards.
Rape or suicide
The UNHCR report said women were required to submit to rape or suicide, those who resist rape are beaten, shot or killed, as well as threatening them with the security of their families and social surroundings.
Earlier this month, Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV reported the details of a secret report obtained and prepared by military figures who worked with the Saudi-UAE Coalition in Yemen on the conditions of prisons, secret detention centers and forced disappearances in 27 old and new prisons in Aden, Hadhramout, Socotra and Moun, not to forget a prison located in Eritrea where the UAE has a military base.
The report lists the types of physical and psychological torture in UAE-run prisons, including rape with devices or sticks or directly through individuals. In addition, they used electrocution in the chest, armpits and male organs, as well as being tormented with sticks, cables, etc..
The report reinforces what the Associated Press reported last June of sexual torture and humiliation by Emirati officers and their agents against hundreds of detainees in five jails in Aden, the interim capital of Yemen.
The agency linked the aforementioned torture and humiliation to the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq during the US occupation.
“The torturers followed a schedule. Beatings on Saturdays, torture on Sundays, and Monday was a break. The next three days were the same routine. On Fridays, it was time for solitary confinement. From inside a Yemeni prison controlled by the United Arab Emirates — a top U.S. ally — a Yemeni detainee held without charges chronicled torture and sexual abuses through drawings. Smuggled to The Associated Press from the Beir Ahmed prison in the southern city of Aden, the drawings offer a grim glimpse into a hidden world of flagrant human rights abuses by UAE officers acting with impunity,” the Associated Press reported.
The agency also reported that the drawings — made on plastic plates — display a man hanging naked from chains while he is being subjected to electric shocks, another inmate on the floor surrounded by snarling dogs as various people kick him, and graphic depictions of anal rape.
“The worst thing about it is that I wish for death every day and I can’t find it,” the artist said, summarizing nearly two years in detention that started last year after he spoke against the Emiratis in public.
“They strip you naked, then tie your hands to a steel pole from the right and the left so you are spread open in front of them. Then sodomizing starts,” said a father of four who has been in detention for at least two years and who, like other detainees, spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation,” the agency reported.
Meanwhile, it added that former security chief who was involved in torturing to get confessions told the AP that rape is used as a method to force detainees to cooperate with the Emiratis in spying.
“Americans use Emiratis as gloves to do their dirty work,” said one senior security official at the Riyan prison in Mukalla, who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.
“Joining ISIS and al-Qaida became a way to take revenge for all the sexual abuses and sodomy,” said a top Yemeni commander currently in Riyadh, referring to the Emiratis. He used an alternate acronym for IS and spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation,” AP concluded.
The UAE is also said to be responsible for the countless assassinations taking place in Saudi/UAE-held Aden Province, southern Yemen.
Mosque preachers have been some of the primary targets of the UAE-funded assassinations. Reports indicate that it is due to expressing criticism against UAE and its ongoing activities in Aden and other southern provinces publicly.
The allegation of “ligitmicay” used by the Saudi-led coalition to launch a war against Yemen apparently seems to be nothing but a fraud for it has been falling into the hands of the Emiratis instead of the Yemenis.