Friends and former colleagues of Shaif al-Hamdani did not know if they would ever see him again.
A Yemeni former employee of the U.S. Embassy in his country, Mr. al-Hamdani had been arrested in 2021 by Houthi militants who had taken control of the capital, Sana. In the years that followed, little was known about his case or those of 10 other active or former Yemeni employees of the U.S. Embassy detained with him, except that they were being held for links to the United States.
Then in June, Mr. al-Hamdani reappeared in a most distressing way: In a propaganda video released by the Houthis, he confessed to spying for the United States and Israel.
“Seeing Shaif in that blue prison jumpsuit, forced to confess under duress, it broke my heart,” said Adam Ereli, an American diplomat who worked with Mr. al-Hamdani at the embassy more than two decades ago.
The video was released in early June a few days after the Houthis — an Iran-backed militia that now controls most of northern Yemen — made a new series of arrests. They rounded up at least 27 staff members of United Nations agencies or local and international humanitarian organizations. In the following weeks, dozens more Yemenis working for similar groups were detained.
That wave of arrests in June raised fears of a broader crackdown on those linked to international organizations and foreign missions in Yemen. Tensions between the Houthis and the West have heightened over the past year, as the Yemeni militants have attacked international shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden and fired missiles at Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza.
Nadwa al-Dawsari, a conflict analyst, said Houthi repression and detentions of U.N. and international staff had been going on for at least five years. But she suggested the newest round of arrests had a more focused goal: stifling local support for Western powers and institutions.
“Their targeting of U.N. staff is a deliberate tactic to extort concessions by using them as hostages,” Ms. al-Dawsari said. “The Houthis seek to control who works for U.N. and international organizations, installing their own people to gain complete control over international aid.”
Yemen is home to one of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. More than half of the population — about 18.2. million people — require some form of humanitarian assistance, according to the U.N. This makes the work of local and international humanitarian aid organizations all the more critical.
The State Department condemned the recent wave of arrests and accused the Houthis of trying to spread disinformation through televised forced and fake confessions about the roles of current and former Yemeni staff members of the U.S. Embassy.
“We’re extremely distressed to see our colleagues in this manner, all of whom, without exception, have done nothing disloyal to Yemen,” Tim Lenderking, the U.S. special envoy for Yemen, said in an interview. “These forced confessions are entirely trumped-up. It’s theater.”
The United States closed its embassy in Sana in 2015 after the Houthis forcefully took power in the capital and the ambassador now operates out of the Saudi capital, Riyadh.
It is not clear whether any charges have been brought against those detained recently. But the Houthis have accused Mr. al-Hamdani and the others arrested in 2021 of conspiring against the country and charged them with being part of an “American-Israeli spy cell.”
At least one person detained in June, Mohammed Naj Khamash, 55, died in Houthi custody this past week, according to his family.
Speaking publicly after the release of the videotaped confessions, the Houthi leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, said that the members of the alleged spy network arrested in 2021 had “subversive” motives behind their humanitarian work.
In the Houthi video, Mr. al-Hamdani claims that he operated under the orders of Mr. Ereli, the American diplomat.
“This video is false and horrific,” Mr. Ereli wrote on social media in June. “Yes, Shaif al-Hamdani worked for me at the U.S. Embassy in Sana. No, neither of us were spies,” he added. “We ran educational and cultural programs, with Yemeni government approval, to develop free and independent institutions.”
After the Houthis overran Sana in 2014, the internationally recognized government there was forced to flee to the southern city of Aden. A Saudi-led coalition then launched a yearslong military intervention to oust them, but failed. That left the Houthis in power in northern Yemen, ruling over most of the country’s population.
The group now controls an impoverished proto-state stretching across northern Yemen and rules it with an iron fist. Previous detentions have underscored a pattern of arbitrary arrests, according to reports by groups such as Human Rights Watch.
The Houthis released highly produced videos, featuring music and graphics, that showed men other than Mr. Al-Hamdani, 63, confessing to espionage too.
The New York Times tried to contact several relatives of the men accused of spying, but all declined to speak publicly for fear of retaliation from the Houthis.
One Yemeni aid worker still in the country, speaking anonymously for fear of retaliation, said repression in Yemen had reached “terrifying” levels. That, and a lack of news media coverage and global interest, has made the consequences of running afoul of the Houthis even more dire, the activist added.
At least half a dozen Yemenis who worked closely with or knew Mr. al-Hamdani described him as a loyal citizen who spent a career in service of his countrymen. That has made it even more difficult for them to watch him be painted as a traitor.
Among those closely monitoring Mr. al-Hamdani’s case is Hisham al-Omeisy, a prominent Yemeni commentator who said he was tortured by the Houthis during his own five-month detention.
“We know that the message behind these arrests is not targeted toward the outside world, but it’s meant to send a message to the everyday Yemeni people that there will be consequences if they work with anyone except the Houthis,” he said.
“That the Houthis have committed these extreme actions against fellow Yemenis is profoundly shortsighted, callous and inhumane,” the U.S. ambassador to Yemen, Steven Fagin, said of the recent arrests.
Despite such condemnations, the Houthis have pressed on with their crackdown.
In August, Houthis stormed the U.N. Human Rights Office in Sana and seized documents, furniture and vehicles. Volker Türk, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, condemned the action as “a serious attack on the ability of the U.N. to perform its mandate.”
The United Nations confirmed several humanitarian workers detained in June had been referred for criminal prosecution by the Houthi authorities.
“The potential laying of ‘charges’ against our colleagues is unacceptable and further compounds the lengthy incommunicado detention they have already endured,” several U.N. agencies and international organizations said in a letter dated Oct. 12.
A potentially more significant consequence of the crackdown is that it has prompted U.N. agencies and Western governments to reassess their engagement in Houthi-controlled areas.
“That’s posing some very serious questions for the U.N. and these N.G.O.s about whether they can continue to operate in Yemen, and if so, on what terms,” Mr. Lenderking said. “We want to help the people of Yemen, but the Houthis are making it more and more difficult to do so safely.”
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