Human Rights Watch said on Monday Yemen has executed 15 juveniles below 18 in the past five years urging the government to stop seeking and carrying out the death penalty against child offenders.
The US-based organization said Yemen was one of the four countries in the region that continue to execute child offenders. The others were Iran, Saudi Arabia and Sudan.
In its report released today at a news conference in Sanaa that was titled ‘"Look at Us with a Merciful Eye: Juvenile Offenders Awaiting Execution in Yemen”, it said there are 22 Yemeni juveniles awaiting execution.
The death sentences handed down to the juveniles, who are now in the central prison in Sanaa, included the one delivered earlier this year against Nadim Al-Azazi which triggered tens of juveniles in the prison to go on a hunger strike.
In its report, HRW said the 22 Yemeni young men have been sentenced to death despite evidence that they were under 18 at the time of committing crimes.
It called on President Abdrabu Mansour Hadi to put an end to executions of juveniles and to reverse the execution orders for three offenders who have exhausted all appeals and could face a firing squad at any moment.
HRW officials said they had interviewed many of the imprisoned juveniles who told them they were beaten, threatened and physically abused while in the police custody. The violations against the juveniles by the authorities led them to ‘make false confessions’.
Among the interviewed was Hind al-Barti, who told Human Rights Watch before her execution last year that police officers abused her and threatened to rape her and that led her to make a false confession.
Priyanka Motaparthy, a children’s rights researcher at HRW, said at the conference Al-Barti’s birth certificate indicated she was 15 at the time of her alleged offense. “Yet she was sentenced and received the ultimate punishment.”
“The Yemeni government should have reduced her sentence if there was any reason to believe she was under 18 at the time of the crime,” she continued.