Case History: Abdul Karim Al-Khaiwani
On the morning of 18 March 2015, human rights defender Mr Abdul Kareem Al-Khaiwani was shot dead near his home in Hael Street of the capital Sana'a by two unidentified armed men on a motorbike.
Abdul Karim Al-Khaiwani was a prominent Yemeni journalist and the former Editor-in-Chief of the pro-democracy online newspaper, Al-Shoura. He advocated for the right to freedom of expression in Yemen and has been vocal against the corruption of the Saleh government though his writings. The human rights defender received the Special Award for Human Rights Journalism Under Threat by Amnesty International in 2008. Abdul-Karim al-Khaiwani was killed by armed gunmen on 18 March 2015.
On the morning of 18 March 2015, human rights defender Mr Abdul Kareem Al-Khaiwani was shot dead near his home in Hael Street of the capital Sana'a by two unidentified armed men on a motorbike.
Abdul-Karim al-Khaiwani had been subjected to harassment due to his peaceful and legitimate human rights work for over ten years. In 2004, he was sentenced to one year's imprisonment for allegedly supporting Hussain Badr al-Din al-Huthi, a cleric from the Zaidi community. In August 2007, he was abducted in Sana'a by armed men who subjected him to torture and physical abuse. In June 2008, Abdul-Karim al-Khaiwani was sentenced to six years' imprisonment by a state security court in Sana'a on charges relating to conspiring with anti-government rebels, insulting the president and “demoralising the military”. The sentence was eventually suspended after a pardon was granted in March 2009 Since then, the human rights defender had faced regular threats as a result of his writing.
Yemen is currently partly controlled by the Houthis, a Shiite insurgent group that seized Sanaa and several northern provinces in 2014. The Houthis then dissolved the Yemeni parliament and created a own presidential council on 6 February 2015. Due to the fragile security situation as well as the political, religious and territorial conflicts, human rights defenders in Yemen have been the victims of harassment, intimidation and violence, including physical attacks and killings.
