SANA'A: In country where the legal system often fails to serve its purpose and favors the rich and powerful, tribal leaders, statesmen and politicians have for years handed down justice themselves by throwing men, women and children in their own private jails, depriving victims of any possible legal representation or chance of a fair trial. To the Ministry of Justice's own admission, no one in Yemen has accurate data as too how many such detention centers exist; judges and officials recognizing that their authority will hold no sway before Yemen power players. However, newly appointed Human Rights Minister Hooria Mashour announced that she would diligently work at eradicating the ancestral practice, ridding Yemen of private jails once and for all. Her office added that the endeavor would be conducted in partnership with the Justice Ministry. A former judge revealed that President Ali Abdullah Saleh had years ago attempted to curb the trend by asking tribal leaders to hand over their prisoners to the legal system, adding that most sheikhs had declined to cooperate, arguing that they were within their tribal rights since one of their tasks was to guarantee order. After a few meager attempts Saleh gave up, allowing this parallel justice to flourish across the country. The practice is basically legalized in the sense that every ministry and every local authority office is now equipped with a jail, often keeping prisoners well beyond the legal limit without proper warrant or even without legal charges having been brought forward. “If a man was to annoy an official, chances are he will end up spending a week or two in jail … just so that he would learn who is in charge,” said one top official. “Governor Duait of Sana'a often indulged in such behavior, using the jail as a way to blackmail people into paying up imaginary fines,” said a former employee. Bikyamasr.com was told by witnesses and former detainees that the living conditions within those centers were “pretty horrendous, well beyond human dignity.” “Guards would be beat me up for the fun of it, leaving me bruised and bleeding on the floor with not even a blanket to cover myself with. Nights are pretty cold in Sana'a in winter and if it wasn't for my family bribing some officers, I would have been left to freeze. They held me in an abandoned house on the outskirt of the capital that was not suitable for human habitation. You don't even treat animals this way,” said Ali, a former inmate of one Yemen many private jails. Revolutionaries in “Change Square,” the epicenter of the popular uprising in the capital, accused defected General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar and al-Islah members, a group of Islamists, to have unlawfully imprisoned protesters when they felt they failed to fulfill the party's political agenda. As soon as people rose against Saleh's regime in Yemen, al-Islah, which is the country main opposition political entity, flooded the square with its loyalists, determined to move the revolution to their advantage. As a result, many independent thinkers clashed violently with al-Islah, refusing to bow to its will. Most of those ended up being accused of treason or were accused with being threats to national security and directed to the party's private jail for “rehabilitation.” Minister Mashour said that she would now use the decree that was passed by her predecessor in 2010, which provides provisions for the closure of such establishments. However, since many of the “owners” are sitting on either the parliament or the government, the ministry is expected to run into serious difficulties with detractors warning that it would only push private jails further underground. “Unless real sanctions are applied against the perpetrators nothing will truly change. Tribal leaders will close down one center and open up another away from the ministry's radar. Since the immunity law was issued, most of the guilty parties are enjoying impunity, making it difficult for the justice system to do anything,” said a human rights activist/lawyer who works with HOOD, Yemen's most prominent human rights organization. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/1Vm3K Tags: Jails, Justice, Private, rights Section: Features, Human Rights, Latest News, Yemen
