Arab News | UN says Houthis force detained staff to make statements on camera, condemns airing of coerced video

NEW YORK CITY: The UN on Monday accused the Houthis of forcing UN personnel detained in Yemen to make statements on camera.

It condemned the militia for broadcasting footage that showed an employee of the organization’s human rights office making what officials described as a ‘visibly forced statement’ while in custody.

The UN had “serious grounds to believe that those arbitrarily detained have been forced to make statements on camera while in Houthi custody,” Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for the secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, said in a statement.

The footage, broadcast on Nov. 5, showed a member of staff from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Haq said it “exposes our colleague to public vilification, puts him at further risk and causes distress to his family.”

He called on the Houthi de facto authorities to take the video down, stop sharing recordings showing statements by persons in detention, ensure the safety and humane treatment of all detained personnel, and to release them “immediately and unconditionally.”

On Oct. 31, the UN reported the death of another Yemeni employee of the UN human rights office, Mohammed El-Shami, who had been detained by the Houthi authorities since June 6, 2024. The organization said he died more than a month earlier but his family had only recently been informed. The exact date and circumstances of his death remain unknown, and his body has not been returned to his relatives.