By Darrin Simmons
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

SANA’A, Yemen-Fourteen Al-Qaeda inmates escaped from the central prison in Yemen’s capital Thursday while gunmen launched a deadly assault on the facility, reported officials.

Seven policemen and three gunmen were killed.  Another two policemen and two gunmen were wounded, and one of the attackers was captured, the foreign ministry said.

The attack began when an explosives-laden vehicle exploded at the facility’s eastern entrance, breeching a hole in the prison fence, security.  Gunmen also attacked guards at the main entrance to create a diversion that allowed the prisoners to escape through the hole in the fence.

Residents reported that an explosion and heavy gunfire rang out near the jail where officials say around 5,000 prisoners are held, before security reinforcements were dispatched to the area.

Nasser al-Wuhayshi, chief of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula who is seen by the United States as the network’s deadliest franchise, vowed in August to free imprisoned members of his network.

Wuhayshi escaped from the same Sana’a prison with 22 other members of AQAP in February 2006 and was named as the group’s leader a year later.

The AQAP detainees escaped through a 44-metre (145-foot) tunnel they dug between their cell and a nearby mosque.

Saudi and Yemeni Al-Qaeda branches combined in January 2009 to form AQAP, posing a serious threat to Western interests across the region.

Thursday’s assault was the second major one in the capital in a little over two months.  In early December, a suicide bomber and several gunmen attacked the defense ministry in a brazen operation in broad daylight, killing at least 52 people and wounding another 167.

Former prisoners at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba who had been returned to Saudi Arabia in December 2006 later escaped to Yemen, two years ago after completing a reform program.

After a wave of deadly Al-Qaeda attacks between 2003 and 2006, Saudi authorities launched a crackdown on the local branch of the group founded by the late Osama bin Laden.

AQAP has taken advantage of the weakening of the central government in Sana’a since a popular uprising that toppled President Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2011.

For more information, please the following: 

Al Bawaba-14 ‘mostly Qaeda’ inmates flee Yemen jail after attack-13 February 2014

Al Jazeera-Al-Qaeda inmates freed in Yemen jail attack-13 February 2014

Global Post-14 ‘mostly Qaeda’ inmates flee Yemen jail after attack-13 February 2014

Reuters-Attack on prison in Yemeni capital kills 11-13 February 2014

By Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

TEHRAN, Iran – According to local human rights groups, Hashem Shaabani, an Arab-Iranian human rights activists has been executed by the Iranian government who called him an “enemy of God” and a threat to national security. According to BBC Persian, officials from the Ministry of Information informed the Shaabani’s family that they had carried out the execution and told them of the location where he had been buried. Both Hashem Shaabani were executed on January 29, without their attorneys or families being notified.

Shaabani was a member of Iran’s Arab-Speaking ethnic minority and had spoken out against the treatment of ethnic Arabs in the province of Khuzestan. Shaabani founded the Dialogue Institute, an organization aimed at promoting Arab culture in Iran, and was well known for his Arabic and Persian poetry.

In  statement the human rights group Freedom House condemned Iran’s decision to execute Shaabani, saying: “His judicial murder underscores two important trends in Iran: Violent repression of ethnic minorities, of which Shaabani’s execution is only one among many examples, remains government policy. And the government’s human rights record has not improved under President Rouhani. During the first two weeks of January, some 40 individuals were executed; Iran is believed to be second only to China in the number of executions.”

Shaabani was hanged in an unidentified prison on January 27. He had been incarcerated since February or March 2011 after being arrested for being a Mohareb, or an “enemy of God”. In 2012, he appeared on Iran’s state-run TV, where, according to human rights activist, he was forced to confess to being a “separatist terrorist.” Shaabani was reportedly subjected to torture while in prison.

Last year Iran executed 625 people, including 29 women and political prisoners, many political prisoners faced the charge of being an “enmity against God” or for somehow being a threat to “national security.”

According to Amnesty International Iran executed 40 people over a two week period in January and according to the Iran Human Rights Documentation Centre (IHRDC) more than 300 people have been executed since President Rouhani, called by some a reformist, took office in August. The majority of the executions in January were for drug related charges, according to Amnesty.

The Iranian government has defended its use of capital punishment, arguing the practice is necessary to maintaining order. The state maintains that it is used only when judicial proceedings have been exhausted. However activists have criticized the state for using Capital punishment as a means of suppressing political dissidence.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran Ahmed Shaheed and the UN’s expert addressing executions Christof Heyns urged Iran last month to stop the surge in executions that has been going on since the start of the year.

As the Iranian government celebrates 35 years since it came to power during the 1979 Iranian Revolution it is clear that the government remains willing to use “judicial murder” as a means of silencing the voices of those who question it.

For more information please see”

National Public Radio – Book News: Poet Hashem Shaabani Reportedly Executed In Iran – 11 February 2014

Al Jazeera – Iranian Poet Executed For ‘Waging War on God’ – 10 February 2014

The Jerusalem Post – Rouhani Orders Executions of Iranian-Arab Poet, Rights Activist – 03 February 2014

Iranian Human Rights Documentation Center – IRI Executes Two Ahwazi Arab Men – 31 January 2014

Al Jazeera – Iran Executes 40 in Two Weeks: Rights Group – 28 January 2014

By Darrin Simmons
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

TEHRAN, Iran-An Iranian naval officer has said that a number of war ships have been ordered to approach U.S. maritime borders in response to U.S. vessels in the Persian Gulf.

Admiral Afshin Rezayee Haddad, stated “Iran’s military fleet is approaching the United States’ maritime borders, and this move has a message.”  Haddad, known as the commander of the Iranian navy’s northern fleet, further said the vessels began their voyage towards the Atlantic Ocean by way of waters near South Africa.

“A destroyer and a helicopter-carrying supply ship have already entered the Atlantic Ocean via waters near South Africa,” stated Haddad.  The ships reportedly set sail last month from the southern Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas, carrying some navy academy cadets for training along with their regular crews.  The ships are on a three-month mission.

A U.S. defense official responded by casting doubt on any claims that the Iranian ships were approaching the U.S. maritime borders, but added that the ships are free to operate and sail within international waters.

Iran views the Persian Gulf as its own “backyard” and believes that it has a legitimate interest in expanding its influence in the Gulf. However, the U.S. and its allies regularly hold naval exercises in the Gulf in order to ensure freedom of navigation where 40 percent of the world’s seaborne oil exports pass through

Iran has made claims that they could block the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf and has been under military attack due to its disputed nuclear program.  As such, Iran has been developing its presence in international waters, regularly launching vessels in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden to protect Iranian ships from Somali pirates within the area.

Iranian Members of Parliament have accused President Hassan Rouhani of stopping a scheduled missile exercise.  IRNA has reported that 24 members of parliament stated that the Supreme National Security Council, headed by President Rouhani, stopped the annual test while not approving its budget.

For more information, please see the following:

 Al Jazeera-Iran says warships to approach US borders-09 February 2014

Payvand Iran News-Iran: Warships to Approach US Maritime Borders-09 February 2014

Reuters-Iran says warships sailing towards U.S.: agency-08 February 2014

Voice of America-Iran: Warships to Approach US Maritime Borders-08 February 2014

 

By Darrin Simmons
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

BAGHDAD, Iraq-Thousands of women have suffer torture and other forms of abuse, including sexual assault, while being illegally held in Iraqi prisons, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Thursday.

The allegations were based on a report containing the testimony of the female detainees, their relatives and lawyers, prison medics, court documents and meetings with official.  Thus, giving credit to one of the central claims made by disaffected Sunni Arabs frustrated with the Shiite-led government.

The minority community has taken issue with the dominating long-running protests in Iraq’s Sunni-dominated areas, saying it is unfairly targeted by the authorities and security forces, and points in particular to the treatment of women in prisons.

One of the 27 women interviewed by the New York-based watchdog had to walk on crutches because she said she had suffered nine days of beatings, electrical shocks and other forms of abuse leaving her disabled.

HRW reported that that woman was later executed despite a medical report supporting her allegations of torture.

A vast majority of the women prisoners have reported being beaten, kicked, and slapped, given electric shocks, and raped, while others have been threatened with sexual assault, sometimes in front of male relatives.

The women were often arrested either in order to question their male relatives’ alleged support for militants or to harass male family members or the community more generally.

“Iraqi security forces and officials act as if brutally abusing women will make the country safer,” HRW deputy Middle East and North Africa director Joe Stork said in a statement.

“In fact, these women and their relatives have told us that as long as security forces abuse people with impunity, we can only expect security conditions to worsen.”

Human rights groups, analysts, diplomats and lawmakers have become increasingly vocal over alleged abuses, including mass arrests, prolonged periods of detention without trial, the closure of some neighborhoods and detainee abuse.

Analysts say that while most Sunnis do not actively support militant groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a powerful jihadist group, their anger means they are less likely to cooperate with authorities in providing intelligence or handing in suspected insurgents.

“These abuses have caused a deep-seated anger and lack of trust between Iraq’s diverse communities and security forces, and all Iraqis are paying the price,” Stork said.

For more information, please see the following: 

Al Arabiya-HRW: Iraq security forces abuse women prisoners-06 February 2014

Al Jazeera-Iraq slammed for women prisoners abuse-06 February 2014

BBC-Iraqi security forces ‘abuse female prisoners’-06 February 2014

Rudaw-Human Rights Watch: Thousands of Women Suffer Abuse in Iraqi Jails-06 February 2014