Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militia transferred Yemeni actress and model Entesar Al-Hammadi to solitary confinement, after a horrific torture session in the notorious Central Prison, north of Sanaa.
In February 2021, Al Hammadi was abducted by Houthi militiamen who stopped her and three colleagues on the main street in Sanaa while she was headed to a photoshoot. She was held on charges including committing indecent acts and drug possession.
Entisar al-Hammadi, currently serving a five-year jail sentence, was moved to solitary confinement at the Houthi-controlled Central Prison in Sanaa, after a torture session with an electric cable.
Yemen Information Minister Muammar Al-Eryani said that Houthis subjected the model to “enforced disappearance, psychological and physical torture,” and “illegally sentenced her to five years in prison when she refused to work with the militia’s prostitution networks to trap political and media figures”.
Al-Eryani accused the Houthis of breaching religious and tribal norms that give women immunity in such circumstances.
“The international community, the UN and human rights organizations that fight against violence against women are demanded to condemn the crimes committed by the terrorist Houthi militia against Yemeni women, and to put real pressure on its leaders to immediately and unconditionally release the artist Entesar Al-Hammadi, and hundreds of forcibly disappeared persons,” the Yemeni minister said on Twitter.
Who is Yemeni model Al-Hammadi:
Al Hammadi was born in Sanaa to a Yemeni father and Ethiopian mother. She grew up with an ambition to become a model and began her career by imitating famous models she watched on TV.
As per media reports, she was the sole breadwinner for her family of four, including her blind father and her brother who suffers from a physical disability.
In May 2021, Amnesty International reported that Al Hammadi had been forced to confess to several offences including drug possession and prostitution, and the authorities decided to subject her to a “forced virginity test”.
Human Rights Watch also spoke of the Houthi militia forcing the artist Al Hammadi to “sign a document while she was blindfolded during interrogation, and offered to release her if she helped them inflict sex and drugs on their enemies.”
The Houthi group overran the internationally recognised Yemeni government from power in Sanaa in late 2014 and now controls most of northern Yemen.
Despite a longstanding taboo in Yemen against women’s detention, scores of women are held in Houthi jails accused of prostitution.
Prostitution is illegal in Yemen, and before the outbreak of war in 2015, it was punishable by death.
