Detained refugees hold out for right to protest

Eight Somali refugees, arrested in December after a peaceful protest in front of the offices of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) in the capital, Sana, remain in detention after refusing to pledge not to conduct further demonstrations. Thirty other detained refugees were released from prison on 18 and 19 January, “after they were forced to sign pledges not to stage anymore sit-ins,” said Khaled al-Ansi, executive director of the Yemeni National Organisation for Defending Rights and Liberties (HOOD). “But eight refused to sign and get out until they were allowed to practice their right to hold peaceful demonstrations," he said. Police reportedly told the refugees they could only leave if they made the pledge. The protest, organised by hundreds of Somali refugees, began in mid-November and went on until being forcibly broken up by security forces on 17 December, when one refugee was killed and eight injured. Demonstrators had demanded more assistance for their kinsman and greater healthcare and protection, as well as resettlement in the United States or Canada. Some protestors also demanded the renewal of their national identity cards, which allow them to work and send their children to public schools. UNHCR spokeswoman Astrid Van Genderen Stort said at the time that some of the protestors’ demands, such as greater assistance for particularly vulnerable groups of refugees, could be met by the refugee agency. The demand for resettlement of all the refugees in western host countries, however, was impossible to meet, she added. “We’ve explained that we can meet certain demands and certain ones we cannot,” she said. “It’s not in our power and not in our mandate.” Meanwhile, some of those since released have complained of abuses suffered while in detention. "Those who were released complained to us that they had been beaten and forced to sign the pledges," said lawyer and HOOD secretary Ahmed Arman. According to HOOD officials, the protestors were merely exercising their legal right to stage peaceful demonstrations. Government sources were unavailable for comment.