US urges Houthis to drop charges targeting Baha’i community in Yemen

US urges Houthis to drop charges targeting Baha’i community in Yemen
February 24, 2020, 10:43 am

View of the Baha'i House of Worship in Santiago on October 13, 2016. (AFP)

The United States has urged the Iran-backed Houthi militia to drop charges targeting the Baha’i community, which said that 24 believers of the faith will face a new trial session Tuesday.

Sam Brownback, the US ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, voiced concern at reports that a court in Yemen’s Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa is again summoning the Baha’is who in 2018 were slapped with charges that include apostasy and espionage.

“We urge them to drop these allegations, release those arbitrarily detained, and respect religious freedom for all,” he wrote on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/IRF_Ambassador/status/1231020116055404545

According to the Baha’i community, one member among the 24 to be tried Tuesday – five of whom are already detained – said that a prosecutor made clear that his arrest was due to his religion.

“The Baha’is that are held in Sanaa are innocent and the physical and mental torture they are experiencing is designed to force them to admit to crimes they have not committed,” Bani Dugal, the principal representative of the Baha’i International Community, said in a statement.

The Houthis are allied with Iran’s Shia clerical regime, which restricts the rights of Baha’is despite allowing freedom of religion for Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians.

Baha’is consider the Baha’u’llah, born in 1817 in Iran, to be a prophet, a sharp contrast from the orthodox Islamic view that Mohammed was God’s final messenger.

Several thousand Baha’is are estimated to live in Yemen. Among them is Hamed bin Haydara, who was sentenced in 2018 to execution with appeals in his case under review.

source: AFP

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