Fears Yemen’s Baha’i are facing persecution
YEMEN: Yemen’s Houthi rebels are waging a campaign of persecution against the country’s Baha’i minority and have already sentenced one of the community’s leaders to death, say activists.
The Baha’i faith is a small monotheistic religion which began in Iran in the 1860s. Followers face regular discrimination in the Middle East for their beliefs and because their headquarters is in Israel.
Activists say Yemen’s Baha’i community is increasingly imperilled under the rule of the Iranian-aligned Houthi rebels, who took control of the capital Sanaa in 2015.
This month the Houthis sentenced Hamid bin Haydara, 54, to death. He was accused of forging official documents and spying for Israel, charges he and his family denied.
Haydara was arrested in 2013 by the Yemeni government. The Houthis continued his imprisonment and issued the death sentence on January 2.
His case sparked outcry from human rights groups and has brought a renewed focus on the situation for Baha’i in Yemen.
‘‘The Houthi authorities must immediately quash the death sentence against Hamid bin Haydara. He is a prisoner of conscience who has been tried on account of his conscientiously held beliefs,’’ said Philip Luther, Amnesty’s Middle East director.
At least five other Baha’i are currently being held in Houthi prisons and dozens of others have been arrested and released in recent years. Armed men stormed a Baha’i workshop in August 2016 and arrested 65 people.
Among them was a 52-year-old Baha’i woman teacher who was held in prison for six weeks before being freed.
‘‘The Baha’i in Yemen are living in a state of fear,’’ said Malath Abbas, the teacher’s nephew, who lives in Dundee. ‘‘This is not random: these are systematic acts of persecution which are escalating over time.’’
The UN warned earlier this year that the Baha’i in Yemen are ‘‘under pressure to recant their faith’’ and that Houthi authorities had used prosecutions and criminal investigations to try to force them to convert to Islam. - Telegraph Group