Yemen Monitor / Sanaa / Exclusive:
Two lawyers and three families revealed to “Yemen Monitor” that the Houthi group has arrested dozens of people in the capital, Sanaa, after accusing them of filming the sites of the Israeli bombing that targeted the city on Sunday.
According to the two sources, the arrests began immediately after the airstrikes in areas such as Hadda, Al-Sabaeen, Al-Jazair Street, Al-Sitteen, and near the Presidential Palace in Al-Nahdain. Houthi militants were deployed in these areas to inspect civilians’ phones and force them to delete any videos or photos they had taken.
The first lawyer explained that he was able to find three of the detainees and is working on their release, while the second lawyer noted that he met with many families searching for their sons in police stations.
One of the family members, Muhammad Al-Emrani, said that his 18-year-old brother and three of his friends were in their car near the Al-Mashatil area when the bombing occurred. His brother filmed the attacks, leading to their arrest and transferred to the Al-Siyaghi police station.
For her part, citizen Salma Muhammad stated that Houthi militants stopped her and forced her to delete what she had filmed or face arrest. Likewise, Halim Al-Suneini narrated that they forced his sister to delete all videos and photos after three Houthi militants surrounded her and accused them of being “agents of the Mossad and the CIA.”
The second lawyer believes that the Houthis justify these actions under the pretext of poor security conditions and the fear of information about their locations leaking to “Israeli and American enemies.”
The sources indicate that the Houthis usually search the phones and electronic devices of those arrested, and if they find any content or correspondence opposing their movement, they are transferred to other prisons. For this reason, the lawyers emphasize the importance of getting the detainees out of the police stations as quickly as possible.
While the Houthi Ministry of Interior usually refuses to comment on such events, the strict measures did not prevent the spread of dozens of videos of the explosions that occurred at the oil company’s station and gas tanks, which showed a massive fireball in the sky of Sanaa, and its smoke continued to rise for many hours.
On Monday, a source in the Houthi Ministry of Health said that the death toll from the Israeli raids had risen to 11, with nearly 100 others injured.
