Amnesty urges Huthi rebels to free journalists on death row

DUBAI: Amnesty International has urged Yemen’s Huthi rebels to free four journalists facing the death penalty for "espionage" in the war-torn country, ahead of an appeal court hearing on Sunday.

The four, Abdul Khaleq Amran, Tawfiq al-Mansouri, Harith Hamid and Akram al-Walidi were arrested in June 2015 in Yemen’s rebel-held capital Sanaa.

"Yemen’s Huthi de facto authorities must quash the death sentences and order the immediate release of four Yemeni journalists who are facing execution following a grossly unfair trial," the rights group said in a statement on Friday.

The Iran-backed Huthis seized Sanaa from the internationally recognised government in 2014, prompting the intervention of a Saudi-led military coalition to support the government. In April 2020, a Huthi court sentenced the four journalists to death on charges of "treason and spying for foreign states".

"This has been a sham of a trial since the beginning and has borne a terrible toll on the men and their families," said Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa deputy director Lynn Maalouf, according to the statement. One of the detained men, Mansouri, is in a "critical health condition" with heart and other ailments, Amnesty said.