Various reports indicate that in the past few years and particularly since 2014 the Baha’i minority in Yemen has been exposed to various forms of persecution, oppression, and violation of basic rights. 

 

Baha’is are being subjected to a form of silent genocide that targets their identity, belief, and daily life.  There are successive and systematic pressure exerted on the Baha’is to abandon their belief and conceal their identity.  There are also relentless efforts to force many to leave their villages and cities, and to even migrate from the country.  What the Baha’is are subjected to amounts to a “crime of religious cleansing”.  The list of persecutions include:

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• Prolonged arbitrary detention with no legal justification.

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• Prolonged solitary confinement of several  Baha’is.

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• Inflicting psychological torture and mistreatment while in detention.

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• Inflicting extreme physical torture including severe beatings, suspension, electric shocks, and bone breaking.

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• Preventing individuals from practicing their faith.

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• Forcing prisoners to sign false confessions and undertakings by imposing psychological and physical pressure including beatings, being forced to sign while blindfolded, and at times injecting prisoners with unknown chemicals.

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• Denying prisoners the right to medical treatment and intentional neglect to cause their health condition to deteriorate.

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• Preventing families from communicating with the detainees.

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• Preventing lawyers from meeting the detainees.

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• Imprisoning women and children without legal justification.

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• Unlawful confiscation of property, money, and physical possessions with any legal warrant or record.

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• Instigating the termination of many Baha’is from their work resulting in loss of their livelihood of many families.

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• Closing down registered organizations and appropriating their properties.

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• Exercising financial pressures by freezing bank accounts, denying financial transactions of Baha’is and those who deal with them.

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• Harassing dozens of individuals and families and placing women under forced house arrest.

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• Raiding homes and terrorizing families and children.

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• Firing shots at homes to scare families.

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• Threatening to kill and terrorizing children by threatening to kill their parents.

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• Threatening wives and other family members with imprisonment if they defended their relative.

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• Issuing random lists of wanted individuals.

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• Attempting to kill a number of Baha’is.

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• Many families being forced to change their places of residence multiple times due to harassment or being on the wanted list.

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• Depriving children from attending school and denying school and university students from attending their final exams.

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• Forbidding individuals from practicing their faith.

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• Ordering closure of Baha’i institutions and confiscating their properties.

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• Confiscating number of Baha’i cemeteries.

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• Denying citizenship rights.

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• Running extensive and systematic misinformation campaigns with the aim of distorting the reputation of the members of the Baha’i community and spreading false rumors about them.

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• Harnessing official media and writers affiliated with the regime to discredit the Baha’is and to insult them and their beliefs.

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• Surveillance of calls and other communications.

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• Delivering public talks which promote prejudice and hatred towards Baha’is and incite violence against them.

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• Firing live bullets at peaceful demonstrations.

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• Forced displacement and mass exiles (crime of cultural genocide and religious cleansing).

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• And other painful stories and instances of systematic persecution.