Abdumalik Al-Houthi and Intisar Al-Hammadi ... The targeting of women under the pretext of "debauchery"
English - Tuesday 11 May 2021 الساعة 09:07 pm
NewsYemen, Abeer Mohsen:
Targeting women has a political significance and message, which is that any opposition will be confronted with social abuse and execution in terms of the "morals" of women, which is the sensitive point in a traditional and conservative society such as the Yemeni society.
Would two tufts of exposed hair end a young woman's future?
The question is legitimate, more than two months after the arrest of the Yemeni Intisar Al-Hammadi by the Houthi group, and its lawyers confirm that it was beaten and abused in prison.
Since the rise of the group's influence and control of Sanaa and areas in northern Yemen in 2014, restrictions on women have multiplied. The victory of Al-Hammadi is an example of the suffering of Yemeni women, who live in conditions that are the most difficult and dangerous because they are women. Intisar is a young woman under the age of twenty who dreamed of being a model while she did nothing more than take a few pictures and walk with a few part of exposed hair. Today's Intisar is being held in prison in Sanaa.
This young woman, born to an Ethiopian mother, has been participating in photo shoots by local designers and posting her photos on the Internet.
Her appearance was not out of the context of traditional local clothing or leather goods.
There are pictures taken without a head covering, which Intisar published on her social media accounts, attracting the attention of followers as well as the eyes of stalkers.
On February 20, Al-Hammadi was arrested on her way with two colleagues after a photo session. According to statements quoted by her lawyer, Khaled Al-Kamal, her arrest took place “without a warrant” and without clear charges.
The questions posed to Entisar, as her lawyer quotes, relate to “prostitution” and “debauchery” amid attempts to characterize her case as committing a blatant act on the pretext that she showed “part of her hair and did not wear the veil,” in public places.
Intisar's case takes an alarming course after refusing to release her and referring her to the court, despite the issuance of a release warrant, according to what her lawyer told Yemeni media outlets.
Al-Houthi and women
The Houthi group imposed restrictions on public and private freedoms, and controlled the privacy of the population and its own lifestyle. Women had the lion’s share in these laws and rules imposed by the group and continue to impose them in its areas of control, as it, along with other parties in Yemen, continued to abuse women and commit acts of violence based on Gender, including sexual violence, according to "Human Rights Watch", and in light of the silence of society that considers talking about these violations - which are increasing in frequency in the war - is not a priority, it seems that the horror of Yemeni women will not end.
Al-Hammadi did not undergo an investigation before the Public Prosecution under the control of the Houthi group, as confirmed to the lawyer and legal advisor Khaled Al-Kamal, and said that his client Al-Hammadi did not attend for the second week of the investigation before the Public Prosecution under the control of the Houthi group, despite the issuance of a memorandum and a request to bring it more than once, but the prison authority is arbitrary prevent it.
Intisar, apart from her interest in fashion, is also an activist who participated in the call for the “revolution of the hungry” on October 6, 2018, to denounce the destruction of the Yemeni economic situation and the collapse of the riyal to record levels in Sana'a, and as a result, Al-Hammadi was on a list prepared by the Houthi group for those wanted by security. As he recounts to “Daraj” Muhammad al-Bakari - a human rights activist and close friend of al-Hammadi - who was also on the list. Al-Bakari says that he managed to flee Sana'a after that, while Intisar Al-Hammadi was unable to do so for financial reasons, as she is the only provider for her family.
According to Al-Bakari, the people of Al-Hammadi did not know where she was. She was kidnapped from the street after elements of the Houthi group intercepted her way when she was with two friends named Yasmine Al-Nashiri and Yusra, while they were passing on Haddah Street in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, before they were taken to an unknown location. Al-Bakari adds, “When I tried to reach her after noticing her absence and disconnection from WhatsApp, I reached a Houthi leader named Abdul Razzaq al-Shami, who told me that she is being held on charges of drug promotion and assured me that they did not find in her possession of any drugs, but they continue to detain her without justification.”
Al-Bakari tried to reach Intisar in prison and was able to talk to her and said that he decided to publish the case of her arrest after verifying it personally. She was on the floor without a mattress and deprived of medicine. This was also confirmed by Khaled Al-Kamal, the lawyer who follows the Al-Hammadi case, expressing his concern about his client's health after she informed him that she was ill and intended to go on hunger strike.
A methodology targeting women
Yemeni activists and activists consider that what Al-Hammadi has been subjected to is nothing but a picture of a violent exclusion methodology targeting women, and Al-Hammadi's arrest came against the background of her work in the field of "fashion", while ignoring the fact that she did not commit a crime and that she is the breadwinner for her family consisting of her blind father and her young brother who is a relative special needs, and her elderly mother.
The case of Al-Hammadi's arrest caused fear and anxiety among many Yemeni women who felt that the fabrication of “moral” charges, such as those rumored around Al-Hammadi, is a double violation aimed at imposing more restrictions on Yemeni women who already suffer from weak protective laws and customs and traditions that discriminate against them.
Belqis al-Lahbi - a researcher and civil political activist - says that what the Houthi group is doing is really its systematic policy, and this is a model that the Taliban and accepted before the Iranian revolution in terms of restraining and targeting women.
Al-Lahbi believes that what is happening against women in Yemen is a deliberate targeting based on the reality of the women's movement in the early 2000s and 2011, during which Yemeni feminist forces emerged as a movement on the way to make change.
Al-Lahbi believes that there is an infiltration of the culture of closure and submission to theocratic authority that determines the values of society and the extent of its commitment to the virtue that some define its standards. Targeting women has a political significance and message, which is that any opposition will be confronted with social abuse and execution in terms of the "morals" of women, which is the sensitive point in a traditional and conservative society such as the Yemeni society.
In a recent report published to coincide with International Women's Day 2021, issued by the National Commission to Investigate Human Rights Violations Supported by the United Nations, the Commission drew attention to human rights violations against women during the war period, confirming that 72 Yemeni women were subjected to arbitrary arrest and enforced disappearance due to their humanitarian activities.
Politicians, or their families faced extortion, as part of the policy of using women in war.
The committee clarified that the Sana'a Capital Secretariat, which is under the control of the Houthis, came first with 31 cases, indicating that the group practices arrest, disappearance and torture and holds most of the women in security branches and other secret places of detention, while a small percentage is in central prisons.
The report revealed that the Houthi group has established a secret annex near the central prison in the capital Sana'a to hide the women, and it currently has 50 hidden women, according to the testimonies of 4 survivors.
This is in addition to the decisions and decrees issued by the group from time to time with a religious preamble that often target and demonize women, tightening the screws on them more in various fields of education, work and entertainment, leading to restricting and codifying the means of organizing pregnancy and controlling the quality of women's clothing, what observers considered a blatant transgression. Personal freedoms are unprecedented in Yemeni political history.
* Quoting from the “Daraj” website
