Fully Authoritarian
World’s Population
Population
Country Context
HRF classifies Yemen – PLC controlled territory as ruled by a fully authoritarian governing authority.
Since the Arab Spring in 2011, Yemen has been embroiled in a prolonged and complex conflict that began with a popular uprising against long-standing authoritarian President Ali Abdullah Saleh, leading to his abdication and the transfer of power to his vice president, Abdrabbu Mansur Hadi, in 2012. While Hadi’s Internationally Recognized Government (IRG), made up largely of Sunnis, continued to receive backing from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), it appeared to exclude the Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah—a Zaidi Shia Muslim separatist group originating from Saada in northern Yemen, who remained critical of the IRG. The conflict intensified in 2014, driven by political grievances between the IRG, based in Aden, and the Houthi movement, based in Sanaa. The Houthis, who had a history of clashes with Yemeni authorities dating back to the early 2000s, sought to expand their control and overthrow the IRG. The conflict has had devastating human costs, with an estimated 233,000 deaths since 2014, including those directly caused by violence and indirect causes like famine, disease, and the collapse of healthcare services. In March 2022, the Saudi-led GCC coalition forced Hadi to transfer authority to an unelected Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) led by Rashad al-Alimi. This move aimed to unite various anti-Houthi factions and strengthen their opposition to the Houthi insurgency. However, efforts to broker peace through a subsequent UN-mediated truce beginning in April 2022 have failed to produce a lasting peace, leaving the country in a fragile state of suspended conflict. As of 2025, Yemen remains divided, with the IRG/PLC controlling approximately two-thirds of the territory, including the key port city of Aden, and the Houthis controlling Sanaa, the former capital, along with other smaller regions. Other groups, such as the Southern Transitional Council (STC), ISIS, and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, also hold scattered territories, contributing to the ongoing instability and complexity of Yemen’s fractured political landscape.
Key Findings
National-level elections are absent in IRG/PLC areas of control, rendering moot any assessment of electoral competition. With the exception of a national referendum that saw Hadi run unopposed in 2012, presidential and legislative elections have been delayed by repeated cycles of conflict and violence, and a lack of regular political activity, rendering moot any assessment of electoral competition. Despite its mandate, the PLC has faced significant challenges and criticisms, including internal fragmentation and rivalries among its members, who often command their own organized armed groups (OAGs) with differing agendas. This has led to a lack of a cohesive political strategy, undermining the council’s ability to govern effectively or facilitate elections. The council’s ability to assert its authority has also been questioned, as some of its members, particularly from the STC, control more powerful forces than the chairman.
Independent media, political figures, civil society groups, and ordinary citizens suffer overt and systematic reprisal if they openly criticize or question the IRG/PLC. Independent journalists are at high risk in IRG/PLC-controlled areas. They are subjected to threats, intimidation, and physical attacks. In some cases, authorities have confiscated their equipment and shut down media outlets. The government’s control over state-run media and its restrictions on independent outlets severely limit the public’s access to diverse and critical information.
Institutions largely fail to check the IRG/PLC. The most significant factor undermining the PLC’s effectiveness is the deep-seated rivalry among its members. The council comprises leaders from different political and military groups with competing agendas, such as the Southern Transitional Council (STC), which seeks to secede, and the Islah Party, a political faction. This lack of a common vision prevents the council from functioning as a cohesive governing body.
National-level elections are absent in IRG/PLC areas of control, rendering moot any assessment of electoral competition. Through pressure applied by the Saudi-led coalition, Hadi’s transitional IRG government was replaced by an unelected Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) in 2022. The eight-person PLC, which serves as the executive body of Yemen’s IRG, consists of representatives from the most influential anti-Houthi factions in the country. These include five conflicting de facto authorities, or major political parties, namely the People’s General Congress, the Islah Party, the STC, the National Resistance Forces, and tribal leaders. The PLC is currently chaired by Rashad al-Alimi (chairman), a former adviser to Interim President Hadi. The PLC’s appointment of Ahmed Awad Bin Mubarak as Prime Minister in February 2024 has created a new schism between Aden and Sanaa, as Mubarak is a longtime adversary of the Houthis.
Substate institutions in IRG/PLC territory are run by unelected officials and organized armed groups, undermining the Yemeni people’s ability to establish electoral processes, access any meaningful public or basic services, benefits, or judicial due process. For example, in July 2022, the IRG/PLC appointed an STC figure as the governor of the island of Socotra, effectively formalizing the group’s local dominance after they had disregarded the objections to their presence and activities on the island. Across IRG/PLC-controlled areas, various local OAGs often dominate different districts and cities. They operate checkpoints, control basic services, levy informal taxes, and provide security, frequently prioritizing their own interests over human rights and due process. Consequently, citizens’ access to basic services such as water, electricity, and healthcare largely depends on their relationships with these groups rather than any formal state provisions. As a result, citizens opt into unreliable patronage networks through bribes, grafts, and kickbacks to conduct any official business or finalize any civil processes.
In 2012, in a one-candidate referendum supported by the Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and designed to create an interim governing authority, Abdrabbu Mansur Hadi was appointed Interim-President and entrusted with delivering free and fair elections. However, his interim presidency was marred by continuous political turbulence, including the Houthi uprising in Sanaa and surrounding areas, which delayed elections indefinitely. This period of instability followed widespread protests in 2011, which erupted as a response to the long-standing regime of President Ali Abdallah Saleh. Under Saleh’s rule, elections were often marked by high volatility, political unrest, and widespread allegations of fraud, voter intimidation, and a lack of transparency, which limited genuine political participation.
In 2022, the GCC, through pressure from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, removed Abdrabbu Mansur Hadi, the former interim president, from office in April 2022 after placing him under house arrest in Riyadh, and replaced his cabinet with an unelected eight-man PLC, headed by a chairman, Rashad al-Alimi, who has been in office since April 7, 2022. This move came after Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the primary supporters of the anti-Houthi coalition, began to see Hadi’s continued rule as a significant obstacle to achieving a political resolution with the Houthi rebels. While the PLC was established with the aim of uniting anti-Houthi factions in a bid to politically isolate the Houthis, due to internal disputes and competing interests, as well as frequent military confrontations between units commanded by its incohesive members, the PLC has been unable to construct any real sense of governance or rule of law, or introduce an election framework or allow inhabitants in their territory to form or advocate for political representation.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and regular people face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the IRG/PLC. Violations against journalists include murder, enforced disappearances, detentions, and assaults. The governing authority also leverages outdated penal codes to criminalize dissent, employing archaic laws such as those related to treason, defamation, and subversion to unjustly imprison, intimidate, and silence critics under the guise of maintaining national security.
The IRG/PLC heavily manipulates media coverage in its favor. In April 2023, the STC stormed the headquarters of the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate in Aden, disrupting the organization and intimidating its staff. This attack was part of a broader strategy to control media coverage and suppress independent reporting in Yemen, reflecting ongoing efforts by factions vying for power to manipulate media in their favor. By intimidating journalists and disrupting the syndicate’s operations, the STC sought to limit dissent and shape public narratives, thereby consolidating its influence and ensuring that media coverage aligns with its interests. In July 2025, Abduljabar Bajabeer, the general director of TV3ad, a local TV channel in Hadramout, was detained on unspecified charges after he and two other journalists had been critical of the local official on social media and in their reporting.
The IRG/PLC seriously intimidates independent, dissenting media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, or members of the general public, or otherwise seriously and unfairly obstructs their work. In the absence of formal bureaucratic channels, dissidents rely on informal patronage networks to obtain consent and access letters from irregular officials, who, in turn, expect displays of loyalty when reporting on or engaging with various issues. The IRG/PLC has heavily relied on the broadly interpreted articles within the 1994 Penal Code to justify their actions against dissenters. This legal framework has been used to arrest, imprison, and even execute journalists, activists, human rights advocates, and political figures who criticize their authority. Charges such as “treason,” “collaboration with the enemy,” and “damaging national unity” are often loosely defined and systematically employed to suppress dissent and silence opposition.
To maintain control over the narrative, the IRG/PLC has actively targeted dissidents—including journalists and human rights defenders—as part of a broader effort to dominate discourse within its territory. This pattern of repression is exemplified by the impunity often enjoyed by armed groups within the PLC, such as the Southern Transitional Council (STC), which makes it difficult to hold perpetrators accountable. For instance, in April 2025, security forces arrested Awad Kashmeem, a journalist and head of the Freedom Committee of the Yemeni Journalists’ Syndicate in Hadhramaut. Kashmeem had been critical of local authorities, and his arrest was condemned by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) as an arbitrary detention. Another example is the unlawful imprisonment of Sami Yassin Ka’id Marsh in November 2023, a human rights lawyer advocating for accountability and justice for violations committed in Aden. As of 2025, he is believed to be detained at the al-Nasr military camp, an informal IRG/PLC detention facility. Throughout his detention, he has been kept incommunicado and denied the ability to communicate with his family and lawyer. In May 2023, French freelance journalists Quentin Müller and Sylvain Mercadier were unlawfully detained in Socotra, accused of spying for Qatar, compelled to sign fake confessions, and deported. They were also forced to reveal their Yemeni informants, who were subsequently imprisoned. Adel al-Hasani, a CNN-affiliated journalist, was imprisoned for six months in 2021, where he was tortured and forced to solitary confinement. Al-Hassani worked on an exclusive CNN investigation that revealed that the UAE and its coalition partners, including the STC (a PLC member), had delivered American-made weapons to al Qaeda-linked fighters, radical Salafi militias, and other factions fighting in Yemen, in violation of their agreements with the US government. He was eventually released in response to pressure from the US administration.
The ongoing conflict in Yemen has had a devastating impact on press freedom and the safety of journalists operating within the country. Widespread violence and political instability have created an environment where media professionals are increasingly vulnerable to threats and attacks. From January 2023 to January 2024, the conflicting parties committed a total of 74 violations against journalists, with the IRG/PLC responsible for approximately 52 percent of these incidents and the Houthis accounting for around 38 percent, according to the Yemeni Journalists’ Syndicate.
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the governing authority. The IRG/PLC has not established fully functional legislative or judicial bodies that can effectively legislate or adjudicate the actions of the governing authority, or represent the interests of the population. Instead, governance mechanisms are characterized by a lack of transparent legislative and judicial processes, with decisions typically made by local authorities, OAGs, or appointed officials rather than through institutional procedures. Foreign powers, particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE, support different factions within the PLC, and their competing interests often create constant friction. For example, the UAE’s backing of the STC’s agenda for a separate South often clashes with the Saudi goal of a unified Yemen.
Since August 2017, the Supreme Council of the Judiciary in Aden has worked to resurrect the judiciary in IRG/PLC-controlled areas. However, the judiciary is generally not independent and is heavily influenced or overseen by the executive, PLC, and local power brokers, including armed groups. The separation of powers is thus weak or largely absent, and judicial institutions often operate under the sway of those in control of the security and political environment.
Courts frequently and unfairly enable the governing authority’s attempts to repress criticism or retaliate against those who express open opposition to its most prominent, widely publicized policies. Journalists and activists are often subjected to trumped-up charges, such as “insulting a public employee” or “disturbing public order,” which carry prison sentences. They are frequently arrested without a warrant and held in arbitrary detention for extended periods without due process. In May 2025, Mohammed Dabwan Al-Meyahi, a Yemeni journalist and writer, was sentenced to 18 months in prison and ordered to pay five million Yemeni riyals (around $20,000 USD). Houthi agents abducted him from his home in September 2024 and arbitrarily detained him for several months. The raid took place due to his journalistic work and criticisms of human rights violations in Houthi-controlled areas. He was falsely charged with distributing malicious news and statements with the intent to disturb public security.
The governing authority directs certain cases, such as politically sensitive cases, to separate, governing authority-controlled courts, such as military courts. For example, Ahmad Maher, a journalist reporting on national developments with a focus on southern Yemen, was arbitrarily detained in August 2022, held for months without charge, and subjected to repeated physical and psychological torture. Instead of investigating his prolonged detention or torture allegations, an Aden-based Specialized Criminal Court (SCC) falsely charged him with “publishing fake and misleading news intended to disrupt peace and security” in March 2022.
The IRG/PLC subjects executive institutions to reforms that abolish or seriously weaken their independence or operational effectiveness. The PLC has yet to finalize and approve its internal bylaws and regulations, which would define the powers and duties of its members and establish mechanisms for dispute resolution. This lack of institutional safeguards has resulted in unilateral decision-making and ongoing disagreements between the council’s chairman and the prime minister, which have hindered the smooth functioning of executive operations. Further, the executive council, or the PLC, is subject to external meddling that prevents it from adopting a unified strategy, as its members prioritize their foreign patrons’ interests over a common national agenda.
Country Context
HRF classifies Yemen – PLC controlled territory as ruled by a fully authoritarian governing authority.
Since the Arab Spring in 2011, Yemen has been embroiled in a prolonged and complex conflict that began with a popular uprising against long-standing authoritarian President Ali Abdullah Saleh, leading to his abdication and the transfer of power to his vice president, Abdrabbu Mansur Hadi, in 2012. While Hadi’s Internationally Recognized Government (IRG), made up largely of Sunnis, continued to receive backing from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), it appeared to exclude the Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah—a Zaidi Shia Muslim separatist group originating from Saada in northern Yemen, who remained critical of the IRG. The conflict intensified in 2014, driven by political grievances between the IRG, based in Aden, and the Houthi movement, based in Sanaa. The Houthis, who had a history of clashes with Yemeni authorities dating back to the early 2000s, sought to expand their control and overthrow the IRG. The conflict has had devastating human costs, with an estimated 233,000 deaths since 2014, including those directly caused by violence and indirect causes like famine, disease, and the collapse of healthcare services. In March 2022, the Saudi-led GCC coalition forced Hadi to transfer authority to an unelected Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) led by Rashad al-Alimi. This move aimed to unite various anti-Houthi factions and strengthen their opposition to the Houthi insurgency. However, efforts to broker peace through a subsequent UN-mediated truce beginning in April 2022 have failed to produce a lasting peace, leaving the country in a fragile state of suspended conflict. As of 2025, Yemen remains divided, with the IRG/PLC controlling approximately two-thirds of the territory, including the key port city of Aden, and the Houthis controlling Sanaa, the former capital, along with other smaller regions. Other groups, such as the Southern Transitional Council (STC), ISIS, and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, also hold scattered territories, contributing to the ongoing instability and complexity of Yemen’s fractured political landscape.
Key Findings
National-level elections are absent in IRG/PLC areas of control, rendering moot any assessment of electoral competition. With the exception of a national referendum that saw Hadi run unopposed in 2012, presidential and legislative elections have been delayed by repeated cycles of conflict and violence, and a lack of regular political activity, rendering moot any assessment of electoral competition. Despite its mandate, the PLC has faced significant challenges and criticisms, including internal fragmentation and rivalries among its members, who often command their own organized armed groups (OAGs) with differing agendas. This has led to a lack of a cohesive political strategy, undermining the council’s ability to govern effectively or facilitate elections. The council’s ability to assert its authority has also been questioned, as some of its members, particularly from the STC, control more powerful forces than the chairman.
Independent media, political figures, civil society groups, and ordinary citizens suffer overt and systematic reprisal if they openly criticize or question the IRG/PLC. Independent journalists are at high risk in IRG/PLC-controlled areas. They are subjected to threats, intimidation, and physical attacks. In some cases, authorities have confiscated their equipment and shut down media outlets. The government’s control over state-run media and its restrictions on independent outlets severely limit the public’s access to diverse and critical information.
Institutions largely fail to check the IRG/PLC. The most significant factor undermining the PLC’s effectiveness is the deep-seated rivalry among its members. The council comprises leaders from different political and military groups with competing agendas, such as the Southern Transitional Council (STC), which seeks to secede, and the Islah Party, a political faction. This lack of a common vision prevents the council from functioning as a cohesive governing body.
National-level elections are absent in IRG/PLC areas of control, rendering moot any assessment of electoral competition. Through pressure applied by the Saudi-led coalition, Hadi’s transitional IRG government was replaced by an unelected Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) in 2022. The eight-person PLC, which serves as the executive body of Yemen’s IRG, consists of representatives from the most influential anti-Houthi factions in the country. These include five conflicting de facto authorities, or major political parties, namely the People’s General Congress, the Islah Party, the STC, the National Resistance Forces, and tribal leaders. The PLC is currently chaired by Rashad al-Alimi (chairman), a former adviser to Interim President Hadi. The PLC’s appointment of Ahmed Awad Bin Mubarak as Prime Minister in February 2024 has created a new schism between Aden and Sanaa, as Mubarak is a longtime adversary of the Houthis.
Substate institutions in IRG/PLC territory are run by unelected officials and organized armed groups, undermining the Yemeni people’s ability to establish electoral processes, access any meaningful public or basic services, benefits, or judicial due process. For example, in July 2022, the IRG/PLC appointed an STC figure as the governor of the island of Socotra, effectively formalizing the group’s local dominance after they had disregarded the objections to their presence and activities on the island. Across IRG/PLC-controlled areas, various local OAGs often dominate different districts and cities. They operate checkpoints, control basic services, levy informal taxes, and provide security, frequently prioritizing their own interests over human rights and due process. Consequently, citizens’ access to basic services such as water, electricity, and healthcare largely depends on their relationships with these groups rather than any formal state provisions. As a result, citizens opt into unreliable patronage networks through bribes, grafts, and kickbacks to conduct any official business or finalize any civil processes.
In 2012, in a one-candidate referendum supported by the Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and designed to create an interim governing authority, Abdrabbu Mansur Hadi was appointed Interim-President and entrusted with delivering free and fair elections. However, his interim presidency was marred by continuous political turbulence, including the Houthi uprising in Sanaa and surrounding areas, which delayed elections indefinitely. This period of instability followed widespread protests in 2011, which erupted as a response to the long-standing regime of President Ali Abdallah Saleh. Under Saleh’s rule, elections were often marked by high volatility, political unrest, and widespread allegations of fraud, voter intimidation, and a lack of transparency, which limited genuine political participation.
In 2022, the GCC, through pressure from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, removed Abdrabbu Mansur Hadi, the former interim president, from office in April 2022 after placing him under house arrest in Riyadh, and replaced his cabinet with an unelected eight-man PLC, headed by a chairman, Rashad al-Alimi, who has been in office since April 7, 2022. This move came after Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the primary supporters of the anti-Houthi coalition, began to see Hadi’s continued rule as a significant obstacle to achieving a political resolution with the Houthi rebels. While the PLC was established with the aim of uniting anti-Houthi factions in a bid to politically isolate the Houthis, due to internal disputes and competing interests, as well as frequent military confrontations between units commanded by its incohesive members, the PLC has been unable to construct any real sense of governance or rule of law, or introduce an election framework or allow inhabitants in their territory to form or advocate for political representation.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and regular people face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the IRG/PLC. Violations against journalists include murder, enforced disappearances, detentions, and assaults. The governing authority also leverages outdated penal codes to criminalize dissent, employing archaic laws such as those related to treason, defamation, and subversion to unjustly imprison, intimidate, and silence critics under the guise of maintaining national security.
The IRG/PLC heavily manipulates media coverage in its favor. In April 2023, the STC stormed the headquarters of the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate in Aden, disrupting the organization and intimidating its staff. This attack was part of a broader strategy to control media coverage and suppress independent reporting in Yemen, reflecting ongoing efforts by factions vying for power to manipulate media in their favor. By intimidating journalists and disrupting the syndicate’s operations, the STC sought to limit dissent and shape public narratives, thereby consolidating its influence and ensuring that media coverage aligns with its interests. In July 2025, Abduljabar Bajabeer, the general director of TV3ad, a local TV channel in Hadramout, was detained on unspecified charges after he and two other journalists had been critical of the local official on social media and in their reporting.
The IRG/PLC seriously intimidates independent, dissenting media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, or members of the general public, or otherwise seriously and unfairly obstructs their work. In the absence of formal bureaucratic channels, dissidents rely on informal patronage networks to obtain consent and access letters from irregular officials, who, in turn, expect displays of loyalty when reporting on or engaging with various issues. The IRG/PLC has heavily relied on the broadly interpreted articles within the 1994 Penal Code to justify their actions against dissenters. This legal framework has been used to arrest, imprison, and even execute journalists, activists, human rights advocates, and political figures who criticize their authority. Charges such as “treason,” “collaboration with the enemy,” and “damaging national unity” are often loosely defined and systematically employed to suppress dissent and silence opposition.
To maintain control over the narrative, the IRG/PLC has actively targeted dissidents—including journalists and human rights defenders—as part of a broader effort to dominate discourse within its territory. This pattern of repression is exemplified by the impunity often enjoyed by armed groups within the PLC, such as the Southern Transitional Council (STC), which makes it difficult to hold perpetrators accountable. For instance, in April 2025, security forces arrested Awad Kashmeem, a journalist and head of the Freedom Committee of the Yemeni Journalists’ Syndicate in Hadhramaut. Kashmeem had been critical of local authorities, and his arrest was condemned by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) as an arbitrary detention. Another example is the unlawful imprisonment of Sami Yassin Ka’id Marsh in November 2023, a human rights lawyer advocating for accountability and justice for violations committed in Aden. As of 2025, he is believed to be detained at the al-Nasr military camp, an informal IRG/PLC detention facility. Throughout his detention, he has been kept incommunicado and denied the ability to communicate with his family and lawyer. In May 2023, French freelance journalists Quentin Müller and Sylvain Mercadier were unlawfully detained in Socotra, accused of spying for Qatar, compelled to sign fake confessions, and deported. They were also forced to reveal their Yemeni informants, who were subsequently imprisoned. Adel al-Hasani, a CNN-affiliated journalist, was imprisoned for six months in 2021, where he was tortured and forced to solitary confinement. Al-Hassani worked on an exclusive CNN investigation that revealed that the UAE and its coalition partners, including the STC (a PLC member), had delivered American-made weapons to al Qaeda-linked fighters, radical Salafi militias, and other factions fighting in Yemen, in violation of their agreements with the US government. He was eventually released in response to pressure from the US administration.
The ongoing conflict in Yemen has had a devastating impact on press freedom and the safety of journalists operating within the country. Widespread violence and political instability have created an environment where media professionals are increasingly vulnerable to threats and attacks. From January 2023 to January 2024, the conflicting parties committed a total of 74 violations against journalists, with the IRG/PLC responsible for approximately 52 percent of these incidents and the Houthis accounting for around 38 percent, according to the Yemeni Journalists’ Syndicate.
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the governing authority. The IRG/PLC has not established fully functional legislative or judicial bodies that can effectively legislate or adjudicate the actions of the governing authority, or represent the interests of the population. Instead, governance mechanisms are characterized by a lack of transparent legislative and judicial processes, with decisions typically made by local authorities, OAGs, or appointed officials rather than through institutional procedures. Foreign powers, particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE, support different factions within the PLC, and their competing interests often create constant friction. For example, the UAE’s backing of the STC’s agenda for a separate South often clashes with the Saudi goal of a unified Yemen.
Since August 2017, the Supreme Council of the Judiciary in Aden has worked to resurrect the judiciary in IRG/PLC-controlled areas. However, the judiciary is generally not independent and is heavily influenced or overseen by the executive, PLC, and local power brokers, including armed groups. The separation of powers is thus weak or largely absent, and judicial institutions often operate under the sway of those in control of the security and political environment.
Courts frequently and unfairly enable the governing authority’s attempts to repress criticism or retaliate against those who express open opposition to its most prominent, widely publicized policies. Journalists and activists are often subjected to trumped-up charges, such as “insulting a public employee” or “disturbing public order,” which carry prison sentences. They are frequently arrested without a warrant and held in arbitrary detention for extended periods without due process. In May 2025, Mohammed Dabwan Al-Meyahi, a Yemeni journalist and writer, was sentenced to 18 months in prison and ordered to pay five million Yemeni riyals (around $20,000 USD). Houthi agents abducted him from his home in September 2024 and arbitrarily detained him for several months. The raid took place due to his journalistic work and criticisms of human rights violations in Houthi-controlled areas. He was falsely charged with distributing malicious news and statements with the intent to disturb public security.
The governing authority directs certain cases, such as politically sensitive cases, to separate, governing authority-controlled courts, such as military courts. For example, Ahmad Maher, a journalist reporting on national developments with a focus on southern Yemen, was arbitrarily detained in August 2022, held for months without charge, and subjected to repeated physical and psychological torture. Instead of investigating his prolonged detention or torture allegations, an Aden-based Specialized Criminal Court (SCC) falsely charged him with “publishing fake and misleading news intended to disrupt peace and security” in March 2022.
The IRG/PLC subjects executive institutions to reforms that abolish or seriously weaken their independence or operational effectiveness. The PLC has yet to finalize and approve its internal bylaws and regulations, which would define the powers and duties of its members and establish mechanisms for dispute resolution. This lack of institutional safeguards has resulted in unilateral decision-making and ongoing disagreements between the council’s chairman and the prime minister, which have hindered the smooth functioning of executive operations. Further, the executive council, or the PLC, is subject to external meddling that prevents it from adopting a unified strategy, as its members prioritize their foreign patrons’ interests over a common national agenda.
