A United Nations team visits with officials of Yemen's Supervisory Committee in Al Hudaydah province, Yemen, May 17, 2023.
(Beirut) – The Houthi de facto authorities in Yemen have sent at least eight people involved in human rights and humanitarian work for criminal prosecution, on espionage-related charges punishable by death, since August 18, 2026, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said today. They include two United Nations employees, a UN consultant, and five people who worked with international and local civil society organizations on a range of issues, including health, human rights, and humanitarian aid.
The Houthis should immediately halt these prosecutions and unconditionally release the eight people whose cases were sent to the prosecution, as well as the scores of other UN staff and civil society workers the Houthis have arbitrarily detained over the past two years.
The prosecution is the latest escalation in a crackdown by Houthi authorities on civil society in the part of Yemen they control, with successive waves of arrests of Yemenis targeting UN staff and civil society members since May 31, 2024. The Houthis have arbitrarily detained over 100 such staff and workers, holding them without charge and denying them access to lawyers and their families.
Many of the detentions started as enforced disappearances. An enforced disappearance happens when a person is deprived of liberty and their detention is denied or their situation or whereabouts concealed, placing them outside the protection of the law.
“As fighting once again escalates in Yemen, the Houthis have maliciously moved to prosecute at least eight UN and civil society workers on charges that could, if convicted, result in the death penalty,” said Diala Haidar, Yemen researcher at Amnesty International. “Demanding the immediate release of Yemen’s UN and civil society worke
