06 December 2023 :

A Yemeni human rights activist has been sentenced to death on spying charges by a court in Sanaa, the country's Huthi-held capital, her lawyer told AFP on December 5, 2023.
Fatima Saleh Al-Arwali was detained by the Iran-backed rebel group in 2022 in an arrest probably linked to her human rights work, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said earlier this year.
The 34-year-old was sentenced to death by a lower court, her lawyer Abdel Majid Sabra said, adding that the ruling remained open to appeal.
According to a court document seen by AFP, Arwali was accused of providing information to the United Arab Emirates, a member of the military coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 in support of government forces against the Huthis.
The rebels took control of Sanaa in 2014 before seizing vast swathes of territory where they have imposed tough restrictions on women.
The war between the two sides has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and plunged the Arabian Peninsula's poorest country into deep humanitarian crisis.
In August, in a letter addressed to authorities in Sanaa, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention voiced fears about "systematic violations of women's and girls' rights" by the Huthis.

05 October 2023 :

A court in Yemen’s southeastern province of Hadramout on October 3, 2023 sentenced four Yemenis to death for kidnapping international humanitarian workers last year. 
The Specialized Criminal Court of First Instance for Terrorism and State Security in the port city of Al-Mukalla, Hadramout’s capital, charged Mohammed Ali Al-Harethi, Ali Ghaled Al-Salehi, Abdul Rahman Ali Al-Salehi and Shehab Abdullah Al-Salehi with kidnapping two employees of the international humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, and ordering their execution by firing squad or beheading.
Five others were absolved in the same case.
In March 2022, armed men believed to be Al-Qaeda militants intercepted a vehicle transporting a German and a Mexican in the Hadramout province between Al-Aber and Al-Khasha. 
Six months later, the captors were apprehended, and Yemeni security forces raided their hideout and freed the two hostages.
During the past three years, the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, and other armed groups have killed and kidnapped a number of international charity workers across the country. 
In August, MSF said that two of its foreign employees had been kidnapped in the central province of Marib, not far from where their colleagues had been kidnapped in 2022. 
The organization’s Yemen office refused to share with Arab News any information on the situation of the two workers or the identity of the abductors, saying it is “still working on the safe return of colleagues.”

12 December 2023 :

The Delhi High Court on December 11, 2023 directed Premakumari, the mother of Nimisha Priya, a Kerala nurse facing a death sentence in Yemen for her involvement in the murder of a local citizen, to furnish documents illustrating the legal option of blood money in the foreign court.
This financial compensation is considered a last resort to negotiate with the victim’s family and potentially save her daughter.
The petitioner, Premakumari, who hails from Kollengode in Kerala’s Palakkad, approached the Delhi High Court seeking permission to travel to the foreign country along with three others, despite restrictions on Indians visiting the region.
The Central Government informed the court that India lacks diplomatic ties with Yemen, and its embassy there has been closed.
Nimisha’s only potential reprieve hinges on the victim’s family, the late Talal Abdo Mahdi, pardoning her in exchange for blood money, a compensation paid by the offender or their kin, in accordance with Sharia law and diplomatic intervention.
During December 11 hearing before Justice Subramonium Prasad, it was disclosed that Yemen’s Supreme Court had, on November 13, rejected Nimisha’s appeal, affirming the death sentence and leaving payment of blood money as the sole means of escaping capital punishment.
Justice Subramonium Prasad instructed, “File that portion with an affidavit where the Yemen court, while awarding the death penalty, has given this legal option of paying blood money,” and listed the matter for December 12.
Advocate Subhash Chandran K R, representing Priya’s mother, informed the high court that blood money is a recognized part of the legal system in the Middle Eastern country, permitted under Sharia law.
Nimisha, a Kerala nurse, had been working in Yemen when travel to and from the country was prohibited in 2016 due to the Civil War. While her husband and daughter returned to India in 2014, she remained due to work commitments. In 2015, with the assistance of Yemeni national Talal Mahdi, she established a clinic. However, conflicts arose, alleging abuse and torture by Mahdi, who also confiscated her passport, preventing her return to her home state. Mahdi falsely presented himself as her husband to Yemeni authorities, obstructing any aid from them.
Priya stands convicted of the murder of Talal Abdo Mahdi, who died in July 2017 after she injected him with sedatives in an attempt to reclaim her passport. It was alleged that Priya gave him sedatives leading to accidental overdose and death.

26 April 2023 :

Journalists Tawfiq Al-Mansoori, Abdul Khaleq Amran, Akram Al-Waleedi and Hareth Humaid, who had been sentenced to death for their journalistic work, have been released as part of a prisoner exchange on 16 April 2023, they had spent eight years behind bars. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) joins its affiliate, the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate (YJS) in welcoming their release and calls for the release of all journalists and media workers in jail.
The four Yemeni journalists were freed as part of a three-day exchange of detainees between the government forces and the Houthi movement, which ended on 16 April, as the war nears its nine-year mark, according to YJS and media sources.
In July 2015, Al-Mansoori, Amran, Al-Waleedi and Humaid were arrested together with other journalists by the Houthi Movement/Ansar Allah at the Hotel Dream Castle in the capital, Sana’a. They were arrested for reporting on human rights violations committed by Houthi forces, who charged them with “espionage for foreign states and spreading fake news”.
In April 2020, they were sentenced to death.
The IFJ and YJS launched an emergency call to international governments in February 2022 to put pressure on the Houthi authorities to release the four Yemeni journalists.
On 21 February, the IFJ sent a letter to the President of the Republic of Yemen, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, urging him and his government to do everything possible to save their lives.
The federation also called on journalists all over the world to stand up for their colleagues by signing an open letter to the UN Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen, urging him to intervene to save the lives of the four journalists who were on death row.

06 April 2023 :

A leader of a Yemeni tribe in the Ma’rib governorate pardoned the killer of his son on 20 February 2023, moments before his execution, local media reported.
Sheikh Abdullah Al Qahati, the father of the victim, Saddam, was present at the Ma’rib Appeal Prosecution building to witness the execution of Rabih Al Damasi, who had been convicted of intentionally killing Saddam years ago.
However, in a dramatic turn of events, Sheikh Al Qahati chose to waive his right to carry out the death sentence as retribution for his son’s murder, ‘for the sake of God Almighty’.
The decision was made in the presence of a number of sheikhs and community notables, who were all moved by the Sheikh’s act of forgiveness.
According to witnesses, the victim’s father had earlier forgiven the murderer of another son of his years ago. This act of mercy and forgiveness has captured the attention of Yemeni activists on social media, who have praised Sheikh Al Qahati’s extraordinary display of compassion.
The perpetrator’s mother had started camping in the cemetery where the victim, Saddam, was buried, asking for forgiveness and pardon.
The mother’s plea for mercy seems to have resonated with Sheikh Al Qahati, who chose to put aside his desire for retribution and instead chose to forgive for the sake of God Almighty.