Sources in Sanaa reported that the Houthi group is threatening the families of its detainees against the backdrop of demanding the release of hundreds who were arrested on charges of preparing to celebrate the anniversary of the revolution that overthrew the rule of the group’s leader’s ancestors in 1962.

According to the statements of a number of detainees’ families to Asharq Al-Awsat, Houthi supervisors in the districts and governorates informed them of clear threats to completely hide the detainees and not release them if these families spoke about them or continued to demand their release.

The sources confirmed that the arrests are continuing and that the Houthi group has released only dozens of detainees, whose number is estimated at hundreds.

According to these testimonies, the families of the detainees, most of whom are from Ibb Governorate (193 kilometers south of Sanaa), which has become a center of opposition to the authority of the Houthi group, were clearly informed that speaking to the media, organizing meetings, or directing complaints to human rights organizations or UN offices will lead to the arrest of some of them. Or completely absent their children and prevent any news about them or their places of detention.

These families stated that they are also being subjected to intimidation after the kidnapping and disappearance of their children, and that threats also reach them through notables in rural areas. At the same time, the Houthi group refuses to allow it to visit the detainees, communicate with them, or appoint a lawyer to defend them, despite the fact that nearly four months have passed since the arrest campaign.

These developments come as the tribes of Ibb Governorate who have been protesting in Sanaa for two weeks have threatened to move their sit-in in front of the Houthi-controlled Interior Ministry building if a Houthi security official and his companions are not referred to the judiciary to be tried on charges of killing one of the governorate’s notables in southern Sanaa on the pretext that he refused to give permission. The road ahead for the Houthi official.

In addition, friends of the Yemeni journalist, Muhammad Al-Mayahi, stated that he began an open hunger strike inside his secret prison controlled by the Houthi group in Sanaa, and he was arrested on the grounds of his criticism of the content of the speech of the group’s leader, Abdul-Malik Al-Houthi.

They held the Houthi group fully responsible for the psychological and physical complications that would happen to the man, and they repeatedly demanded the immediate release of him and all detainees in all prisons. They called on local and international organizations and the UN special envoy for Yemen to pressure the group to release an unarmed writer who only has his pen.