[The following report was issued by Human Rights Watch on 12 February 2013.]

Unpunished Massacre: Yemen`s Failed Response to the "Friday of Dignity" Killings

Summary 

On 18 March 2011, as popular revolts swept the Arab world, tens of thousands of demonstrators in Yemen held a protest that they proclaimed the Friday of Dignity. The biggest rally took place at Change Square, a sprawling protest camp in the capital, Sanaa. As the protesters finished their midday prayer, dozens of men wearing civilian clothes and armed with military assault rifles converged on the rally from the south and opened fire.

“They were shooting at us directly, some from the rooftops,” said Jabir Saad Ali Jabir al Mandaliq, a protester who was paralyzed from the waist down from one of the bullets. “I thought it was the end. I began praying to Allah, ‘There is no God but God…’ The next thing I knew I was shot.” 

The Friday of Dignity massacre proved to be the deadliest attack on demonstrators of Yemen’s yearlong uprising.  Over the course of three hours, the gunmen killed at least forty-five protesters—most of them university students and three of them children— and wounded 200 while state security forces made no serious effort to stop the carnage.  Outrage over the killings added further momentum to the protests, which in February 2012 forced President Ali Abdullah Saleh from office. 

But there is no guarantee that justice will be served for these killings. Instead, Yemen’s transition government is basing its prosecution of the case on a deeply flawed investigation by Saleh administration. Rather than bringing the change that protesters died for, the proceedings could perpetuate the impunity of the past.

Human Rights Watch found that several senior former and current government officials appear to have played a role in the massacre but have not been charged. A trial against the alleged killers began in September 2012 but ground to a halt after lawyers for the victims sought top officials’ indictments.  In addition, then-President Saleh dismissed Attorney General Abdullah al-Ulofy six weeks after the shootings when al-Ulofy demanded that primary suspects, including government officials, be brought in for questioning.  

Of the seventy-eight defendants indicted for the killings, more than half remain at large and are being tried in absentia by the First Instance Court for the Western Capital District of Sanaa. Lawyers for the victims allege that the authorities have made no effort to find them, despite repeated orders to do so by the trial judge. The two alleged masterminds, both sons of a pro-Saleh governor and ranking members of the state security apparatus, are among the fugitives from justice. Even the minister of justice concluded on the first anniversary of the shootings that “the real perpetrators escaped and only their accomplices and supporters are in jail.”

This report is based on more than sixty interviews with witnesses, victims of the shooting, lawyers, government officials, human rights defenders, and journalists. Human Rights Watch also reviewed the court file on the case, as well as more than twenty video clips and dozens of media reports on the killings. We monitored all sessions of the Friday of Dignity trial that had taken place at this writing. 

Among Human Rights Watch’s key findings:

• The Central Security Forces, a paramilitary unit led at the time by President Saleh’s nephew, Brig. Gen. Yahya Saleh, received repeated warnings from security officials and residents of an impending bloodbath in the days and hours before the attack, as well as repeated calls for help once the shootings began. Yet the night before the attack, the Central Security Forces withdrew from the streets where the shootings took place.  They returned to the scene a half-hour after the attack began, after the worst of the shooting ended, and at that point shielded the gunmen from the protesters.
• Prosecutors for the Public Prosecution’s Northern District, which carried out the investigation, failed to interview, much less charge, several ranking government officials whom witnesses implicated in the attack. They include Brig. Gen. Yahya Saleh—whom President Hadi removed as chief the CSF in December 2012, but without disciplinary proceedings—as well as then-Interior Minister Mutahar alMasri, and Mahweet Governor Ahmad Ali al-Ahwal, an appointee and political ally of then-President Saleh.
• Forty-three of the seventy-eight suspects whom prosecutors indicted in June 2011 in connection with  the attack are listed as fugitives from justice—thirty-one were never apprehended, prosecutors say, and another twelve disappeared after they were provisionally released pending the outcome of the trial. The missing defendants include the sons of Mahweet Governor al-Ahwal—Col. Ali al-Ahwal, who directed the investigations unit of the Central Investigations Division, Yemen’s criminal investigative agency; and Ghazi al-Ahwal, security chief of Aden, Yemen’s busiest port and a center of resistance to the central government. 
• Of the eight defendants detained for the shootings, many appear to be peripheral accomplices at most. They include a sixty-five year-old garbage collector and a visually impaired homeless man. (In addition to the eight detainees and forty-three alleged fugitives from justice, twenty-seven defendants were released on bail or their own recognizance; they have continued to appear at trial sessions.)

The Friday of Dignity killings marked a turning point in the movement to end the thirty-three-year rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, prompting dozens of government officials and diplomats to defect to the side of the demonstrators. The massacre’s brazenness and high death toll made it a symbol of the brutal response to Yemen’s uprising, in which government forces and pro-government assailants, often acting in concert, killed at least 270 protesters and wounded thousands of others in the twelve months before Saleh ceded power. Protesters later named the site of the attack Martyr’s Square and turned it into a shrine, adorned with portraits of the dead.

The massacre appeared to have been planned. In the preceding days, armed gangs and local residents had built several walls at the southern edge of Change Square to keep back the protesters, and amassed sacks of bullets in buildings used for the shootings. As demonstrators were finishing their prayer, the assailants lit a fire along the thickest and tallest wall, trapping the protesters’ main escape route and creating meters-high clouds of smoke that partially obscured the gunmen.  Many of the shooters had masked their faces with headscarves in an apparent effort to conceal their identities. All the dead and many of the wounded were shot in the head and upper body, suggesting the gunmen were trained sharpshooters who aimed to kill.

President Hadi has promised sweeping reforms and accountability for the abuses of the past, including those committed during the 2011 uprising.

In an interview with Human Rights Watch, the replacement attorney general, Ali Ahmad Nasser al-Awash, denied any meddling by government officials. Brigadier General Saleh, the former president Saleh’s nephew and at the time of the attack the chief of the Central Security Forces, also denied any wrongdoing by his forces, which have been implicated in numerous  assaults on protesters during the uprising. Brigadier General Saleh said his anti-riot forces could not stop the shooting because they were armed only with batons. He, like the former president, accused the protesters of being armed. 

Human Rights Watch’s investigation found that protesters were not armed although many hurled rocks at the gunmen who fired on them. Protesters also tore down the wall and stormed Governor al-Ahwal’s home and other buildings from which the gunmen were shooting, even as the gunfire continued. They raided the governor’s home, set it on fire, and brutally beat some of the suspected gunmen. 

Those protesters responsible for beating suspected pro-government gunmen also should be investigated.

Efforts to prosecute those responsible for the Friday of Dignity attack are complicated by a sweeping immunity law that the Yemeni parliament passed in January 2012 in exchange for former president Saleh’s resignation. The law grants the former president complete amnesty and all those who served with him immunity from prosecution for all crimes except acts of terrorism committed during his presidency. 

In October 2012, lawyers for the Friday of Dignity victims filed a motion in court that asks the trial judge to seek the indictment of at least eleven additional government officials for the shootings, including former president Saleh, former Interior Minister al-Masri, and Brig. Gen. Yahya Saleh. On November 28, the trial judge in the case sent the motion to the constitutional division of the Supreme Court requesting an interpretation of its validity in light of the immunity law. At this writing, the Supreme Court panel had not issued its decision, and until it does the trial is for all practical purposes suspended. 

A court challenge in Yemen is one of three paths to prosecution of any officials who may be shielded by the immunity provision. A second route would be for authorities in another country to prosecute any suspects within their jurisdiction. Courts abroad are not bound by amnesties issued in Yemen, and certain serious human rights offenses, such as crimes against humanity, may be subject to universal jurisdiction, meaning they can be tried by courts wherever the domestic law permits.

A third option is for Yemen’s transition government to accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during the uprising. Yemen is not a party to the ICC, but it could accept the court’s retroactive jurisdiction through a formal declaration. The United Nations Security Council also has the authority to refer situations to the ICC for consideration.

In September, transition President Hadi ordered the creation of an independent and impartial commission of inquiry to investigate human rights violations during the 2011 uprising, including the Friday of Dignity attack. The commission is to adhere to international standards and recommend measures for accountability and compensation to victims. 

Six months earlier, on the eve of the first anniversary of the Friday of Dignity attack, President Hadi had ordered compensation for victims of all attacks during the uprising. A committee overseeing the fund would provide monthly stipends equivalent to a soldier’s salary — about 20,000 Yemeni Rials, or US$93—to those severely disabled and families of those killed, and to pay for medical care for those severely injured, either at home or abroad. 

At this writing, the fund had not been created. A group aiding the victims said that the government had separately allocated each of the seriously wounded and the families of the dead between 360,000 and one million Yemeni Rials (US$1682 to US$4,672), but at this writing the group had not finished distributing the funds. 

While President Hadi’s decrees are important first steps toward truth-finding and redress, a commission of inquiry and compensation should not be seen as substitutes for criminal prosecutions. Survivors and relatives of the victims are entitled to accountability as well.  

They include survivors such as Salim al-Harazi, who was only eleven years old when he slipped away from home to join the Friday of Dignity rally and lost both eyes after a bullet struck his face. “The former president said he would protect the protesters,” Salim, who was thirteen at this writing, told Human Rights Watch. “So I thought I would be safe.”

They include victims’ relatives such as Zainab Ahmad Muhammad Saleh, whose son Abdullah al-Shurmani joined the Friday of Dignity rally to demand government support for education and a job, and instead received a fatal bullet in his chest. Al-Shurmani’s mother told Human Rights Watch: 

They trapped the young people with walls so they could not escape the assassins. And then they killed them, these men in full bloom of youth. We want a fair trial. Compensation is not enough.

Yemeni authorities should reopen the criminal investigation into the Friday of Dignity massacre and ensure that the probe is credible and impartial and meets international standards. They should devote adequate resources and effort to promptly apprehending the defendants listed as fugitives and ensure all those responsible are brought to justice, notwithstanding the immunity law. 

Concerned countries, including the United States and member states of the European Union and Gulf Cooperation Council, as well as the UN Security Council, should publicly oppose the immunity law, and impose travel bans and asset freezes on any Yemeni officials responsible for the serious violations associated with the Friday of Dignity attack and other major crimes during the 2011 uprising. They should refuse assistance to any security forces implicated in these crimes until those responsible are removed from the ranks and held to account.

Concerned governments also should support a resolution at the Human Rights Council to create an international investigation into the Friday of Dignity attacks and other serious rights violations during the 2011 Yemeni uprising should Yemeni efforts fall short. 

These attacks should not go unpunished if there is to be a genuine break from the abuses of the past in Yemen.

Recommendations 

To the Government of Yemen 

• Reopen the Public Prosecution investigation into the Friday of Dignity attack of March 18, 2011 to ensure all those implicated, regardless of position or rank, are arrested and appropriately prosecuted. Ensure that the new investigation is independent, impartial and meets international standards. 
• Devote adequate resources and effort to promptly apprehending the forty-three defendants in the case who are listed as fugitives from justice.  Take appropriate legal action against those obstructing justice by assisting fugitives.
• Promptly create the independent commission ordered through presidential decree in September 2012 to conduct a transparent and independent investigation, in accordance with relevant international standards, into serious human rights violations during the 2011 uprising.  The commission’s findings should form the basis for investigations and criminal prosecutions as appropriate.
• Promptly establish a fund for reparations, including compensation and rehabilitation, for the wounded and families of the dead in the Friday of Dignity attack and other attacks during the 2011 uprising in accordance with international standards. Ensure that payments are appropriate to the harm inflicted. 
• Comply with international obligations prohibiting immunity from prosecution for those responsible for serious human rights violations.
• Ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Accept through a formal declaration the jurisdiction of the ICC retroactive to at least January 2011 to allow for the possibility of an investigation into alleged crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC since the beginning of the protest movement.
• Ensure that when responding to protests security forces act in accordance with the UN Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials and the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, exercising restraint in the use of force and taking measures to prevent the outbreak of violence.
• Respect and protect the rights of all persons to peaceful assembly, freedom of expression, and freedom of association. Any limitation on these rights should have a clear basis in law, be for a legitimate and specific reason, and be narrowly restricted to what is necessary to meet the aim. 

To the UN Security Council, Gulf Cooperation Council, European Union, United States, and Other Concerned Countries 

• Publicly oppose immunity for Yemeni officials implicated in serious violations of international human rights law or international humanitarian law. Make clear that such immunity has no effect in jurisdictions outside of Yemen.
• Impose an asset freeze and travel ban on current and former officials implicated in the Friday of Dignity attack and other serious human rights violations until perpetrators are fully and appropriately held to account and victims receive adequate redress.
• To donor countries: Suspend all security assistance, including sales of weapons, ammunition, and equipment, to any Yemeni security units implicated in the Friday of Dignity attack and other serious human rights violations, until officials implicated in those crimes are removed from duty and held to account. 
• Support Yemen’s efforts to conduct independent, impartial, and transparent investigations into serious violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law in Yemen during the 2011 uprising. Should these efforts fail, publicly support an independent international investigation into these violations.

To the UN Human Rights Council 

• Maintain monitoring of the Yemeni government’s investigations and prosecutions of serious violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by all sides during the 2011 uprising and in previous years. 
• Recommend an explicit timeline for the government of Yemen to carry out transparent and independent investigations that adhere to international standards into past violations. Take measures to ensure accountability, including establishing an independent international investigation, should Yemen’s national investigations fail to meet this timeline.

[Click here to download the full report.]