Yemeni pro-government activists have launched a two-day campaign on social media this week under the slogan "The Houthis are a Terrorist Group.” The local journalist Ali Al-Uqbi tells IranWire that the campaign aims to inform the world about Houthi “crimes and terrorism” by conveying a message – supported by publicly-abailable material including news reports, tweets and images – about international law violations by the Houthis in Yemen.
The campaign comes in the wake of a last-minute decision by Donald Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on January 19 to designate the Iran-backed militant group as a foreign terrorist organization. The move effectively froze any US-based assets held by the Houthis and made it a crime to provide resources to the movement. The Biden administration has temporarily halted the ban and promised to review the designation in response to criticism from aid groups.
Al-Uqbi told IranWire that the new campaign group comprises civil society activists and journalists who share "a national goal: most of them [are] victims who have been displaced by Ansarallah's forces either within Yemen or abroad." He believes it is one of the most important media campaigns aimed at "exposing the Houthis to the international community."
According to Al-Uqbi, the participants are calling on the international community to stand with the Yemeni people "to confront the danger of Iran and its forces present in Yemen." The campaign supports the US administration's decision to classify the Houthis, otherwise known as Ansarallah, as a foreign terrorist organization.
Government Backs Designation
The Yemeni Shura Council has also issued a statement calling on the international community to "deal positively" with the United States' decision to classify the Houthis as a terrorist group.
In a series of tweets using the campaign's #HouthiTerrorisminYemen hashtag, Muammar Al-Eryani, Yemen’s minister of information, culture and tourism, called on the international community to support the designation based on the United Nations Charter. This, he said, would “constitute a victory for the blood of hundreds of thousands of victims that has been shed”. He added that " leniency" on the part of the international community over the past few years has worsened the conflict and its effect on Yemenis.
Yemen's ambassador to UNESCO, Muhammad Jamia, also tweeted: "International organizations should know that the Houthis have been waging a war against Yemenis since 2004, that is, 10 years before the coalition intervened. It is shameful that non-Yemeni organizations and figures should support the Houthis against Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.” In the UK there is strong public opposition to arms sales to Saudi Arabia for use fighting the Houthis in Yemen.
Ansarallah Supporters Protest
On Monday demonstrations took place in Yemen as well as in capitals around the world, according to the Houthi SABA news agency, calling for an end to the six year "global war on Yemen" that has led to "the largest humanitarian disaster”.
Many Yemenis took to the streets to participate in demonstrations called for by Ansarallah in both the capital, Sanaa, and the cities of Al-Bayda' and Sadah. Ansarallah called on its supporters to gather in public squares in opposition to the decision by the Trump administration. Northern Yemen is largely held by the Houthis, who seized Sanaa in late 2014 and deposed the country’s Saudi-backed president. More than 85,000 children have died in the famine that has resulted from the civil war.
Houthis “Recruiting Children”
Yemen’s minister of information has also stated that the Ansarallah movement is recruiting and sending children to battlefronts. Al-Eryani tweeted: "The Houthi militia has recruited more than 30,000 children, taken from their schools and homes to training courses to poison their minds with slogans of death and extremist terrorist ideas. They are then ruthlessly thrown onto battlefronts before being returned to their families in empty boxes as an offering to their masters in Tehran to implement their disruptive plans."
Civil society activists have accused the Houthis of violating children's rights, depriving them of education and displacing them from their homes. The Geneva-based SAM Organization for Rights and Freedoms said it has monitored more than 950 violations against the educational process in Yemen, which is witnessing a continued deficit and decline due to the war, as well as an escalation of political and sectarian polarization.
According to a UNICEF report on education in Yemen, more than 2,500 schools in the country are not in operation, with two-thirds of them destroyed due to violence, while 27 percent of educational institutions have closed and 7 percent are being used for military purposes or as shelters for the displaced.
SAM said violations include imposing financial levies on students and turning schools into military barracks, in addition to looting and closing schools, and changing their names to the names of Houthi religious figures.
Ideology in Schools
SAM confirmed that increased recruitment among students has prompted many parents to either stop their children from going to school or move them to safer areas such as villages or cities not under Houthi control. This has affected them psychologically and pushed them to engage with an insecure job market to provide for their financial needs and support their displaced families.
In a statement on International Education Day, January 24, SAM said it had monitored worrying numbers of cases impacting the educational process in Yemen.
The organization stressed the need for the international community to assume its legal and humanitarian responsibilities towards Yemenis and to provide the country's children with every opportunity to take up their right to education, removed from internal conflicts, hate speech, and racial discrimination.
SAM also monitored the Houthis’ circulation of political slogans within schools, teaching students the group's chants, in addition to holding religious activities and events with controversial ideological orientations that contribute to influencing and attracting students to the battlefield.
Related coverage:
United States to Designate Iran-Backed Houthis as Terrorists
Iran’s “Open Attack on Yemeni Sovereignty”
Interested in writing for IranWire?
Share your stories.
comments