(Beirut) - The United Arab Emirates-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) and the Yemeni government should immediately provide information on the whereabouts of the journalist Naseh Shaker and unconditionally release him, 35 organizations including Human Rights Watch said in a letter today to the president and vice president of Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council.
Shaker, 35, is a Yemeni journalist who was forcibly disappeared by STC authorities on November 21, 2023, on his way to Beirut to attend a training organized by the Samir Kassir Foundation. The STC controls several governorates in Yemen, including the temporary capital Aden. The authorities have not revealed his whereabouts to his family, legal representatives, or local and international organizations, despite repeated inquiries.
"The Southern Transitional Council should end its repeated practice of harassing, arbitrarily detaining, and forcibly disappearing journalists and human rights defenders," said Niku Jafarnia, Yemen and Bahrain researcher at Human Rights Watch.
Source: Human Rights Watch
