By: Mahmoud Assamiee
Published:20-05-2010
A thousand five hundred prisoners live in Hodeida Central Prison, despite it having being built to house only 350. About 160 were arrested illegally. They complain of a lack of food and water, and share 70 uniforms that they wear in turn when they are transported to court. Prisoners complain of very high temperatures, because part of the prison is built with corrugated iron or without protection from the sun. This is only some of the data collected by Yemeni human rights lawyers who recently visited detention centers in the Hodeida governorate, on the western coast of Yemen, earlier this year.
HODEIDA, May 18 - The National Forum for Human Rights (NFHR) has reported illegal detention, overcrowding, lack of food and water, unsanitary conditions and torture in Hodeida's prisons and detention centers.
The Yemeni organization recently released a report on human rights violations in the governorate's prisons and detention centers.
The report, prepared by Yemeni human rights lawyers who started their visits to the centers in March this year, notably focused on female prisoners who are vulnerable to rape and different forms of violence.
According to the report, two women were tortured during interrogation by two officers from the police's criminal investigation unit. The women are now held in unsanitary houses used to detain women who have committed crimes like adultery.
Inside these prisons, prisoners lack every service they need as a human being. Pregnant women do not have access to health services. They sometimes give births inside these prisons where their infants are at risk of disease.
A woman, aged 35, is in the prison on charges of committing adultery with her husband's brother after her husband left her nine years ago, said that she gave a birth to a son in prison. She is in prison with her eldest son, aged 9.
The report revealed that the newborn is at risk of dying in prison at any time because of the bad health conditions in this old house in Bait Al-Faqih, Hodeida.
This woman said that she is from poor family and cannot hire a lawyer to help her. There is no one to support her and her two children inside the prison, let alone her other children living in the village.
She fears that her family will discover what happened to her.
The report also revealed violations in illegal arrests and kidnappings for political motives. The team of lawyers found several cases of people arrested illegally by the Political Security Organization (PSO).
The PSO arrested Walid Saif while he was working on his motorcycle in Hodeida. His family did not learn about his arrest until two weeks after his arrest because of being the half-brother of someone with alleged links to Al-Qaeda.
Despite having been arrested illegally, he remains in prison after more than one year.
According to the report, there are more than 160 prisoners in Hodeida Central Prison who were arrested illegally by the PSO in Hodeida and other governorates on charges of being affiliated to the Houthis, and then transferred there for months.
Lawyers denied access
When visiting the prisons and detention places in the governorate, the report's researchers found that often prison officials delayed them from entering the prisons, despite permission from security and the general prosecution to do so.
Lawyers who were inspecting the prisons said they were not allowed to visit police stations in Al- Dhoha, Al-Qanawees, Al-Beidha, Ruaini and Al-Da'iri in Al-Hali district.
They said officials in these places refused to allow them to enter to hide violations committed inside or to have time to transfer prisoners inside. They said that even places that they were able to visit after four days' delay were evacuated of prisoners.
Foreign prisoners
In Hodeida Central Prison and transitional prison, the team found many prisoners from different nationalities.
Besides Somalis, Ethiopians and Eritreans, there is a Sir Lankan prisoner who has been in the central prisons since 2005.
According to the documents he carries with him, he was working as diver in a local fish farm and was accused of signing a document related to money. Despite the court verdict issued in 2009 that the charges were withdrawn, he is still in the prison.
The team also found that dozens of foreign prisoners have completed their sentences, but not been sent back to their own countries. Some of these prisoners are in bad health conditions and do not get health care.
One Eritrean prisoner tried to kill himself by swallowing a bottle of chlorine used for cleaning clothes.
The inspection team registered many cases of torture, whether by prison guards or police investigators.
Talal Ali, at the police station in the Zabid district, said he was beaten around the head for two hours, which led to his difficulty in hearing, and was forced to sign a document agreeing that he had committed the charges that he was accused of.
He was arrested at 11 pm by policemen who broke into his house without a warrant and detained him for a week before he was transferred to the prosecution.
During this week, he was subjected to physical torture. Talal is only one example of tens of others who face the same treatment or even worse.
Overcrowded and no food
Due to lack of enough public prisons, especially for women, in most of Hodeida districts, officials have resorted to using private houses to detain women who have not yet been sentenced. These places are very crowded, female prisoners are subjected to violence and humiliation, and regularly denied their human rights.
In Bait Al-Faqih District for example, women are detained in an old house, where female prisoners are denied their human rights.
Karama Abbas, female officer of Bajel district's female prison, said the female prison is a 3-meter wide and 4-meter long room in an old building. Prisoners are in charge of cleaning the room themselves.
They do not have regular meals, but the officer in charge of the prison begs for food from restaurants and stores who give her only leftovers. She also said that, if one of the prisoners is sick, she treats her herself and also begs for the cost of medication from philanthropists.
Male prisoners also complained of a lack of food and water. Prisoners reported that open sewers run through the prisons, which leads to disease.
The NFHR report is part of a project to enhance the role of lawyers in defending human rights supported by the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation.
Its release follows the United Nations torture watchdog earlier this month urging the Yemeni government to investigate all allegations of ill treatment of detainees in the country.