Al-Houthi militias..the practice of religious and sectarian discrimination against its violators
English - Monday 23 May 2022 الساعة 03:30 pm
Aden, NewsYemen, special:
The Houthi militia intensified its wars against violators in the governorates under its control, and practiced forms of religious and sectarian discrimination against them.
During the past 11 years, the Houthi militia, Iran’s arm in Yemen, committed thousands of violations and crimes against its violators, and practiced repression against its opponents in thought and doctrine, and targeted hundreds of mosques and Quran and hadith memorization centers affiliated with Salafis, Dawah, Ahlus-Sunnah, the Islah Party, Bahais and followers of Imam Mahdi... It closed many of them, and even those affiliated with the Zaydi sect were not spared from it, and they were the majority within their geographical framework. Rather, it imposed by force of arms its preachers, curricula and ideas imported from the seminaries of Qom and Tehran on its students in all the provinces under its control.
Despite the Houthi militia’s attempt, through its media, to market as a political current that embraces the moderate Zaidi faith, all its wars against Yemeni violators and wrapping itself in a national internal cover under the name of defending “sovereignty and dignity” exposes its dogmatic convictions in religion, history, the exercise of governance and its insistence on imposing Its ideologies and the establishment of its activities and Shiite rituals reveals the relationship and the strong ties between its sectarian and sectarian roots and the dreams of its leadership, which sees in its wars the restoration of a right stolen from its Imami fathers.
Al-Houthi Militia worked to sectarianize the war to facilitate its recruitment and mobilization, and to portray the conflict as a sectarian conflict between Zaydis and Shafi’is, and received generous media and military support from Iran, within the strategy of sectarian division, and raised the banner of its fight against Takfiris and terrorism in most of its internal wars to gain the approval of the West, but the presence of National forces and societal rejection are the safest guarantor of not slipping from its right path from its explicit national framework (legitimacy and a coup) as it is an armed sectarian militia that by force of arms overthrew the authority on September 21, 2014 and claims the divine right to rule.
Since its launch, the Houthi militia has launched in Saada Governorate (its main stronghold) and the reason for its invasion of Yemeni cities began campaigns of harassment, kidnappings and violations against its opponents in thought and doctrine, starting with the siege it imposed on the Salafists in the Salafi Dar al-Hadith in the Dammaj area in Saada during the period October 15, 2011 - December 22, 2011 under the pretext of supporting the government Yemen, stockpiling weapons, and training foreign terrorists to fight and excommunicate Zaydiyah, according to the Houthis. While the Salafis say that the Houthis do not want the presence of opposition in their areas, which ended in their displacement to Sanaa and other provinces.
In mid-May 2014, the Houthi militia blew up a mosque belonging to the scholar Muhammad Abdul-Azim al-Houthi, a Zaydi cleric who was known for his opposition to the Houthi group, in the Al-Makhath area, Amran governorate. They raided the House of the Noble Qur’an in the Khadra area of Jabal Yazid District, looting its contents and then detonating it, a day after the bombing of Dar Al-Hadith in Samh village, Duran Anas District, Dhamar Governorate.
The statistic of the mosques and the role of the Noble Qur’an that the Houthi militia blew up in the governorate of Amran, after their control of the governorate, documented 16 mosques and houses of the Holy Qur’an, namely: Al-Rahman Mosque in Azhar, Al-Farouq Mosque in Danan, Dar Al-Hadith Mosque in Khaiwan, and Al-Hassan Bin Ali Mosque in Bani Sarim, Al-Aqili Mosque in Bani Aqil, Al-Rahma Mosque in Hoth, Wahas Mosque in Hoth, Hamzah Center for the Memorization of the Holy Qur’an in Hoth, Al-Tayseer Foundation for the Support and Memorization of the Holy Qur’an, Al-Siddiq Mosque in Al-Khamri, Dar Al-Ahmar Mosque for the Memorization of the Holy Qur’an, Al-Rahma Mosque in Khamer, The Al-Ghoula Mosque is in Naqeel Al-Ghoula, and the Bilal bin Rabah Mosque is in Raida. Al-Houthi gunmen in the Hashid tribe also blew up about 20 mosques and houses of the Holy Qur’an belonging to their opponents and those who disagree with them ideologically, in addition to the bombing of 5 mosques and Quran memorization houses in the Hamdan district in Sana’a and Al-Jawf governorate, and the bombing of the Dar Al-Hadith mosque in Kitaf in Saada, and the house of Ahim Kosher in Hajjah.
Since 2016, dozens of Baha'is - minority adherents of the Baha'i faith - have been arrested on trumped-up charges, imprisoned and denied due process during years of court trials that have resulted in death sentences in some cases. In raids targeting the homes of Baha'is and their affiliated NGOs, the Houthis confiscated phones, property, passports, and their bank balances, and subsequently pressured the detainees' relatives and friends to pay for their release.
In early May 2018, the Houthi militia raided a center affiliated with the Salafi group in Sanaa, and stormed the Al-Ansar Mosque, on Socotra Street, near the Shumaila neighborhood, which is under the control of the Salafis. The remembrance was recited and lessons in the mosque, and it also stormed the Dar al-Hadith Center and the Holy Qur’an memorization center in the city of Zarajah in the Hada district, and besieged the Salafist imam center in Maabar city, Dhamar governorate.
In late January, the Houthis kidnapped the Emir of the "Preaching and Reporting" group and three of the group's sheikhs in Al-Bayda Governorate, against the background of their refusal to request the militia supervisors to call and mobilize through the pulpits of mosques and through lectures and to mobilize citizens to join the militia's ranks and send them to fight in its absurd battles. The past two years have harassed the sheikhs, preachers and followers of the “Preaching and Reporting” group, preventing them from practicing their advocacy activities and holding their lectures far from any partisan or sectarian inclinations in the mosques of the capital, Sana’a, and the areas under its control.
Gradually, the Houthi militia is trying to impose its distorted religious ideas and rituals on Yemenis who embrace the Shafi’i sect in Yemen, who are the majority of the country’s population. They are distributed among the traditional Sufi sects: Shadhili, Qadiriyah, and Rifa’i, and others, by forbidding saying “Amen” when reading Surat Al-Fatihah in every prayer, The prohibition of Tarawih prayers, the delay of breakfast dates, the obligation to perform the Eid prayer in the manner of the Shiite sects, and the raising of the call to prayer in a new form.
The militia also regularly holds sectarian courses and lectures targeting students in schools and universities, forcing employees and people in popular neighborhoods to attend these courses, which are similar to Husseiniyas that are held in Iranian seminaries, in addition to its distortion of school curricula and instilling ideas of violence and extremism in its contents, and distributing the lieutenants of its leaders in The summer centers, which contain sectarian lessons that incite hatred and violence, and poems about the sanctification of its leader and dynasty, have turned these centers into a trap for sectarian and sectarian shipping, a trap for the children of Yemen and thrust them into fighting their people, and camps to recruit them and destroy their future, and to cultivate the meanings of the hateful dynasty and Wilayat al-Faqih in their minds.
Despite all the campaigns of repression, violations, and imposition of distorted ideas and rites carried out by the Houthis in their areas of control during the past years, in light of the authoritarian climate suitable for them and the tightening of their grip on the population, this was met with a great societal rejection .. But these attempts have contributed to deepening the state of sectarian segregation and sectarian.
Observers say that the Houthi coup militia, since its coup and control of Sanaa, has been imposing its ideologies and narrow sectarian ideology unilaterally and forcibly on Yemeni society known for its moderate, tolerant and non-fanatic religiosity, and its insistence on establishing its sectarian activities in light of the societal rejection of it and deliberately inflaming and fueling sectarian conflict and discrimination. .
They pointed out that the Houthi attempts come within its plan to spread the extraneous Khomeinist rituals and ideologically raise an entire generation on terrorist ideas and to distort the identity of Yemenis and use them as sacrifices to implement the Iranian agenda.
They warned of the consequences and consequences of the Houthi militia's practices on the social fabric and civil peace, and the values of diversity and sectarian coexistence that have characterized Yemenis over the past decades.
