UAE-backed forces fighting on behalf of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen have kidnapped hundreds of men and allegedly tortured some, according to relatives and local human rights activists.

An investigation - published on Friday by The Daily Beast website and funded by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism - said uniformed men belonging to a militia called the Elite Forces, which is controlled by the UAE, abducted men from their homes and brought them to a secret prison compound in southern Yemen, where they were allegedly tortured.

Human rights activists compared the conditions at al-Riyan airport, in southeastern Yemen, to that of notorious US-run prisons such as Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and Abu Ghraib in Iraq.

UAE forces have been fighting in Yemen since 2015 alongside members of a US-backed, Saudi-led coalition battling Houthi fighters and al-Qaeda-affiliated armed groups.

The investigation echoes a similar report put out by the United Nations earlier this year that warned of increasing instances of forced disappearances in UAE-controlled southeastern Yemen.

According to the UN, the UAE-backed Elite Forces were created to counter the rise of al-Qaeda fighters in the southeastern port city of Mukalla once the government regained control of the area in April 2016.

The city had previously been under the control of armed groups for nearly a year.

Efforts to take back the city were led by the UAE, which maintains a strong presence across the city.

Weeks of interviews with family members of the disappeared led the Bureau of Investigative Journalism to conclude the mass kidnappings were part of a campaign by the Elite Forces against al-Qaeda suspects.

Activists told the Bureau many of those abducted worked normal jobs while al-Qaeda was in control of the city, but had no connections to the group. </s> A rights group filed a lawsuit against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during his visit to France on Tuesday, accusing him of complicity in torture and inhumane treatment in Yemen, lawyers said.

PARIS: A rights group filed a lawsuit against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during his visit to France on Tuesday, accusing him of complicity in torture and inhumane treatment in Yemen, lawyers said.

The complaint on behalf of Taha Hussein Mohamed, director of the Legal Center for Rights and Development (LCRD), said the prince who is Saudi Arabia's defence minister was responsible attacks that hit civilians in Yemen.

The case was filed in a Paris court as pressure grows on President Emmanuel Macron to curb arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which spearhead a coalition fighting Iran-aligned Houthi rebels who control of most of northern Yemen and the capital Sanaa.

A Saudi government communications office and the royal court did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Saudi-led coalition regularly says it does not target civilians.

The rights group, based in the Houthi-controlled Yemeni capital Sanaa, says on its website it monitors and documents rights' violations in Yemen.

"He ordered the first bombings on Yemeni territory on March 25, 2015," the group's lawyers, Joseph Breham and Hakim Chergui, said in the complaint seen by Reuters.

"The existence of indiscriminate shelling by the coalition armed forces affecting civilian populations in Yemen can be qualified as acts of torture," they wrote.

The lawsuit may embarrass Macron at a delicate moment in French-Saudi relations. France is the world's third biggest arms exporter and counts the kingdom as one of its biggest buyers.

The lawyers cited U.N. reports and documentation by rights groups such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Oxfam on arbitrary detentions and the use of illegal cluster bombs.

Authorities will now begin studying the suit and decide whether there is a basis to take further legal action. If the case follows the usual course, the prince would be informed of the legal action, but there would be no move to make him attend a hearing or detain him.

The Yemen conflict has killed more than 10,000 people and displaced more than 3 million - more than 10 percent of the population.

The complaint also accuses the coalition of depriving millions of people of access to basic necessities due to indiscriminate bombings and a naval blockade of Yemeni ports. The war has pushed the country to the brink of famine.

Coalition air strikes targeting Houthi fighters have frequently hit civilian areas, although the alliance denies ever doing so intentionally.

The coalition also says it is providing financial support to help aid agencies and humanitarian groups to help civilians.

The lawyers said French courts were competent to handle the case in line with the United Nations convention against torture.

Seventy-five percent of French people want Macron to suspend arms exports to Gulf Arab states. Several rights groups have warned of possible legal action if the government does not halt its sales. </s> DUBAI (Reuters) - Human Rights Watch accused Saudi Arabia on Thursday of violating international humanitarian law in Yemen and stepping up arrests and prosecutions of activists seeking reform or voicing peaceful dissent.

In its World Report 2018, which reviews human rights practices in more than 90 countries, the rights group reported it had documented 87 unlawful attacks by the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, leading to nearly 1,000 civilian deaths.

 Yemen's internationally recognized government, backed by the coalition and supported by the United States and Britain, is trying to roll back the Iran-aligned Houthi militia which controls most of northern Yemen.

 The coalition has repeatedly denied allegations of war crimes and says its attacks are directed against its Houthi foes, not civilians.

 A spokesperson for the coalition, in a statement responding to the report, said it was "unfair" to blame Saudi Arabia for the humanitarian situation in Yemen, adding that it had established an oversight mechanism which found that the coalition did not target civilians.

 "The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has given more than $8 billion in aid to Yemen from 2015 until 2017 and on Wednesday deposited $2 billion in the Central Bank of Yemen of the legitimate government, with the aim of boosting the country’s financial and economic situation while bolstering the Yemeni Riyal to improve the people’s living conditions," the statement said.

 Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has rocketed to the pinnacle of power in Saudi Arabia, pushing a reform agenda called Vision 2030 aimed at weaning the country off oil and introducing social changes.

 Last week, women were allowed to attend a men's soccer match in stadiums for the first time. This week, women-focused motorshows opened in Jeddah and Riyadh and a decades-long ban on screening films in the conservative kingdom was lifted. 

 Meanwhile, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said, more than a dozen prominent political activists convicted on "vague charges arising from their peaceful activities" were serving lengthy prison sentences.

 “Mohammad bin Salman's well-funded image as a reformist falls flat in the face of Yemen's humanitarian catastrophe and scores of activists and political dissidents languishing in Saudi prisons on spurious charges," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

 "Baby steps on women's rights reforms don't paper over Saudi Arabia's systemic abuses."

 

 (Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by Mark Heinrich) </s> (This version of the Feb. 4 story corrects venue of gathering to Warwick University in paragraph three)

Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkol Karman of Yemen looks on during a news conference as part of the Nobel Women's Initiative to gather a first-hand account of the ongoing violence against women land defenders, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, October 24, 2017. REUTERS/Jorge Cabrera

DUBAI (Reuters) - Yemeni Nobel Prize winner Tawakkol Karman was suspended from an Islamist party allied with President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after she accused the Saudi-led coalition that backs him in the country’s civil war of acting as occupiers.

Karman won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for her role in Arab Spring protests that ousted authoritarian President Ali Abdullah. More recently she has ramped up public criticism of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, accusing them of backing a campaign to divide Yemen by supporting southern separatists against the internationally recognized government.

Speaking at the Warwick Economics Summit at Britain’s Warwick University over the weekend, Karman said Saudi Arabia and the UAE were driven by a “reckless adventurism” when they intervened in Yemen in 2015 after Iran-aligned Houthi forces drove Hadi into exile.

In an earlier Twitter message, she wrote: “Saudi Arabia and UAE took advantage of the (Houthi) militia coup in Sanaa to launch a very ugly occupation and an uglier influence in Yemen.”

The Islah party, regarded as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is viewed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE as a terrorist organization, tried to distance itself from Karman and order her suspended from its ranks.

“Tawakkol Karman’s statements do not represent the Islah party and its policies, and are not in line with the party’s positions,” a statement posted on Islah’s website said.

“Therefore, the general secretary has decided to freeze her membership according to the party’s status.”

Karman, who left Yemen after Houthi militia seized the capital Sanaa in a series of military advances that began in late 2014, responded on her Twitter account by describing Islah leaders as “prisoners and slaves” of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.

Tensions between Islah and southern separatists have been rising since Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, announced a boycott of Qatar in June last year over allegations that Doha backs Islamist militants. Qatar denies the charges.

Islah, eager to ease the worries of Gulf Arab states about its Islamist leanings, has sought to distance itself from the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood denies accusations from conservative Arab governments of involvement in terrorism, saying it seeks democracy by peaceful means only.

The southern separatists want to restore the independent state of South Yemen, which merged with North Yemen in 1990. They have fought the Houthis alongside Hadi’s forces, but rose up last week and seized control of the southern port of Aden after Hadi refused to sack his prime minister, whom the separatists accuse of mismanagement and corruption. </s> SANAA, Yemen — Amid more clashes on Thursday in Yemen, the country's Shiite rebels confirmed their endorsement of a U.S.-brokered cease-fire deal previously announced by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

However, the backing of the deal by Yemeni rebels, also known as Houthis, was a moot point since Yemen's internationally-recognized government has already dismissed the plan as "unilateral," saying it was not involved in recent talks between Kerry and a Houthi delegation in Oman.

On the ground, government forces expelled rebels from several districts in the western city of Taiz while an international rights group issued a damning report on Thursday, criticizing the Houthis' detentions of political opponents.

Human Rights Watch said the Shiite rebels have carried out hundreds of unlawful detentions and torture since capturing the country's capital, Sanaa. The New York-based group said it has documented two deaths in custody and 11 cases of alleged torture and abuses.

HRW also called upon the Houthis in Sanaa to hold officials accountable and to release the detainees — without forcing them to sign false confessions of cooperating with a Saudi-led coalition that is waging a war to expel the Houthis from territory the rebels captured.

Sarah Leah Whitson, the Mideast director at Human Rights Watch, said the war between the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition "provides no justification for torture and 'disappearance' of perceived opponents."

Houthis descended from their northern enclave in 2014 to take Sanaa and much of northern Yemen. The rebels forced President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to flee the country and seek shelter in Saudi Arabia, which subsequently launched the intervention by mostly Gulf Arab states that has consisted mainly of a punishing air campaign.

The airstrikes, together with the ground fighting, have pushed the already impoverished nation to the brink of famine and displaced nearly three million people. The conflict has killed over 4,000 civilians.

In his announcement, Kerry said the cease-fire was supposed to start on Thursday and lead to the formation of a unity government before the end of the year.

Mohammed Abdel-Salam, the Houthis spokesman, told Al-Masirah TV late on Wednesday that the rebels agreed to the deal.

The peace plane, however, sidelines Hadi, transfers his authorities to a newly appointed vice president, and gives the Houthis a share of power.

Residents in Taiz, one of the worst-hit cities in Yemen's conflict, said fighting escalated in the city's eastern districts. Images were posted on social media showing pro-government fighters on tanks and armored vehicles, flashing the victory sign in front of newly captured positions, including the city's military hospital.

Airstrikes resumed on other Yemen front lines: in the eastern province of Marib, outside of Sanaa, and in the northern Houthi stronghold of Saada.

Dozens were killed and wounded in the fighting but a precise death toll among fighters from the two sides was not available. The residents spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing for their safety. </s> Brian Dooley is a senior adviser at Human Rights First.

Last week, Sen. Robert Menendez (N.J.), the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warning that the United States “may be obligated by law to terminate all arms sales to the [United Arab Emirates].” Menendez’s move showed that the time has come for Washington to launch a radical overhaul of its relationship with Abu Dhabi.

Menendez’s query follows fresh revelations that high-tech U.S. antitank missiles sold to the UAE have ended up in the hands of Libyan rebel forces fighting to overthrow the U.S.-supported government in Tripoli. That same government has just accused the UAE of using a U.S.-made jet to bomb a migrant center in Libya, killing at least 53 people. In 2014, the Pentagon said the UAE had secretly bombed Libya, much to the surprise and annoyance of U.S. officials.

The UAE currently stands accused of supplying al-Qaeda-linked militias in Yemen with U.S.-made weapons, and of supporting the military junta that has been violently repressing pro-democratic forces in Sudan. All this shows that Abu Dhabi is a profoundly unreliable ally. Yet, the UAE has largely escaped the scrutiny finally imposed on Saudi Arabia for similar misdeeds. That needs to change.

In recent months, congressional critics of Saudi Arabia have grown increasingly vocal over that country’s disastrous war in Yemen and the premeditated murder of Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Yet the essential role played by the UAE in Yemen and in other grievous human rights violations goes largely unnoticed.

Earlier this month, a bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation prompted by the Trump administration’s attempt to short-circuit congressional oversight of 22 arms transfers via a dubious “emergency” claim. The bill is snappily titled The Saudi Arabia False Emergencies (SAFE) Act, and makes no reference to the United Arab Emirates. Yet 13 of those 22 “Saudi” arms sales involve the UAE. The weapons involved include hundreds more antitank missiles of the kind diverted to Libyan rebels, along with Apache helicopters and semiautomatic rifles.

Resolutions barring these arms transfers were passed by the Senate on June 20, and similar action is likely in the House. A vocal supporter of arms sales to autocrats, President Trump has already indicated he’ll veto the bills.

Trump has said this even though the UAE-Saudi coalition has dropped U.S.-made bombs on civilians in Yemen — in violation of international law — and even though an al-Qaeda-linked group in Yemen supported by the UAE has obtained U.S.-made armored vehicles. The president has said this also despite credible claims that UAE authorities run secret detention and torture facilities in Yemen.

Recent reports indicate that UAE’s leaders may be trying to extricate themselves from Yemen; the government in Abu Dhabi announced on Monday that it plans to withdraw troops. They know that that the humanitarian and human-rights catastrophe they’ve created makes for bad public relations. Even so, the UAE should also be getting attention for its massive violations of human rights both at home and abroad.

As is the case in Saudi Arabia, prisons in the United Arab Emirates hold dozens of peaceful activists convicted in sham trials and subjected to torture. Moreover, the two governments often work in concert. Last year, authorities in the UAE seized women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul before handing her over Saudi Arabia. She remains imprisoned there, subjected to torture for her advocacy.

The jailing of Ahmed Mansoor is an example of what happens to Emirati citizens when they dare to criticize the government, no matter how peacefully. Mansoor, a University of Colorado graduate and 2015 winner of the prestigious Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, is serving time for posts he made on Facebook and Twitter. His case has been adopted by the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in Congress.

When I spent time with Mansoor and other Emirati activists a few years ago, I saw how frightened they were. “State security basically runs the country, no matter who the official government is,” one veteran activist told me. “It’s unaccountable, omnipotent, and scares everyone.”

Since then, what was left of civil society has been silenced, jailed or driven into exile. Both Mansoor and Nasser bin Ghaith, another internationally respected activist (and a graduate of Ohio’s Case Western Reserve University School of Law), are serving 10-year prison sentences.

And it is not only the UAE’s human rights record that should worry Washington. The government in Abu Dhabi is also flirting with Russia. Last year, Mohammed bin Zayed, the UAE’s de facto leader, signed a Declaration of Strategic Partnership with Vladimir Putin, a first for Russia in the Persian Gulf region. The year before that, the UAE struck a deal to buy Russian anti-armor missiles and Sukhoi fighters, and to jointly develop a light-combat fighter jet.

Zayed is also the reported mastermind behind a regional dispute with Qatar that has forced the United States into the awkward position of having to mediate between military allies.

While the U.S. government has been slow to reevaluate its relationship with the UAE dictatorship, other American institutions are pushing for change. New York University’s presence in the UAE has attracted growing criticism, especially since the detention, torture and sentencing of British academic Matthew Hedges. And earlier this year, the Washington-based think tank Center for American Progress announced it would no longer accept funds from the UAE government after allegations of undue influence. Money from the UAE is finally, rightly, becoming an embarrassment.

Arming the UAE as it supports horrific abuses in Libya, Yemen, Sudan and at home should also be embarrassing. In fact, it should be unacceptable. The effort to end unconditional U.S. support for Saudi Arabia is long overdue. But Congress shouldn’t overlook the kingdom’s partner in crime.

The Post’s View: Saudi Arabia murdered a journalist. Trump doesn’t seem to mind.

Alkhatab Alrawhani: Yemen’s peace process is almost dead. Here’s how to revive it.

The Post’s View: Trump continues to kowtow to MBS. Congress has a chance to say no. </s> If the US were to follow the rules of warfare written into US military law and treaties to which the US is a party, the US must immediately end its support for the Saudi Arabia-led war in Yemen. We should also marshal all of its diplomatic tools to end the conflict. Since 2015, Saudi Arabia, and allies such as the United Arab Emirates, have been waging a devastating war in support of the former government of Yemen against the current Houthi regime. Amnesty International has called the conflict a "forgotten war" because its deadly consequences have failed to rise to the level of international crisis in media or government agendas. However, under former President Barack Obama and now Donald Trump, the US has been complicit in war crimes and the creation of a completely preventable humanitarian nightmare for the people of Yemen.

On August 28, 2018, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights released a report detailing the brutal conduct of the war. As of June 2018, at least 6,475 civilians had been killed and more than 10,000 injured in the conflict. The report notes the "real figure is likely to be significantly higher." While evidence "strongly suggests" that all parties to the conflict have violated international law, the report is clear that Saudi-led coalition airstrikes are responsible for the largest numbers of civilian deaths and injuries. Moreover, there is significant evidence that the Saudi-led coalition has repeatedly bombed civilian neighborhoods, medical facilities, markets, weddings, funerals, and even a school bus full of children. Intentionally attacking civilians is a war crime.

The United States has provided targeting support, intelligence, and midair refueling to Saudi fighter jets, enabling its continued bombardment. The US has also sold billions of dollars of sophisticated weaponry to Saudi Arabia, including cluster bombs, a weapon banned by UN treaty and outlawed by the majority of countries in the world. America’s actions have been lethal for Yemeni civilians. In the most recent example, news outlets reported in August 2018 that US-manufactured bombs killed 40 children, and others, in a single Saudi strike on a school bus. No matter how it is portrayed in media or by government representatives, aerial warfare is not clean and it is not precise.

On the ground, the situation is dire. The UN reports that arbitrary detention and torture in prisons controlled by UAE-affiliated forces is widespread, and government security forces have made a "common practice" of abduction and rape of women in order to extort money from victims’ families. In the careful language of human rights reporting, the UN states that there are "reasonable grounds" to believe that Saudi Arabia, UAE, and the government of Yemen have committed war crimes including rape and torture. Saudi Arabia and its allies have also blockaded Yemen by air and sea, preventing food and lifesaving medical supplies from entering the country. As a result, 8.4 million Yemenis were on the brink of famine as of April 2018. The collapse of healthcare infrastructure caused by the blockade has led to the largest series of cholera epidemics in modern history, as many as a million people.

The conditions in Yemen are unbearable and entirely man-made. Saudi Arabia and its allies, including the United States, are causing massive suffering for millions of civilians. In March, US Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) introduced a bill that would have ended US support for the war. The bill was defeated 55-44 with 10 Democrats joining the Republican majority. Before the vote, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stated that withdrawing US support would increase the risk to civilians. This argument strains credulity given that it is Saudi Arabia and its allies that are causing the majority of casualties. Furthermore, if McConnell were concerned about civilian safety, he would push congress and the Trump Administration to bring conflicting parties to a negotiating table.

Pursuing peaceful negotiations to end the conflict is an important diplomatic effort the United States should take immediately. It must also end its support for states and groups committing war crimes. The preponderance of evidence suggests Saudi Arabia is regularly violating the laws of war, and the US is complicit as long as it continues to enable Saudi actions. It must stop refueling Saudi jets and providing targeting intelligence. Crucially, the United States should initiate, and pressure other governments to support, an arms embargo on warring parties. At minimum, it must immediately suspend all weapons sales to Saudi Arabia. Finally, if US leaders claim to care about civilians in Yemen, they should drastically increase humanitarian aid for Yemenis whose suffering they have caused and the United States must reopen its refugee resettlement program to displaced Yemenis.

From 2015 to late 2016, the Obama Administration did not push for this moderate set of diplomatic initiatives and Trump is even less likely to take these actions. It is therefore incumbent upon Americans to call and write to their elected representatives to pressure them to end our support for the decimation of Yemen. If Americans care about human rights and international law, the bare minimum we can do is stop abetting war crimes against the people of Yemen.

Jared Keyel, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a Ph.D. candidate at Virginia Tech’s School of Public and International Affairs, researching refugee resettlement in the United States. </s> DUBAI - Yemeni Nobel Prize winner Tawakkol Karman was suspended from an Islamist party allied with President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after she accused the Saudi-led coalition that backs him in the country's civil war of acting as occupiers.

Karman won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for her role in Arab Spring protests that ousted authoritarian President Ali Abdullah. More recently she has ramped up public criticism of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, accusing them of backing a campaign to divide Yemen by supporting southern separatists against the internationally recognized government.Speaking at the Warwick Economics Summit in London over the weekend, Karman said Saudi Arabia and the UAE were driven by a "reckless adventurism" when they intervened in Yemen in 2015 after Iran-aligned Houthi forces drove Hadi into exile.In an earlier Twitter message, she wrote: "Saudi Arabia and UAE took advantage of the (Houthi) militia coup in Sanaa to launch a very ugly occupation and an uglier influence in Yemen."The Islah party, regarded as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is viewed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE as a terrorist organization, tried to distance itself from Karman and order her suspended from its ranks. </s> DUBAI (Reuters) - Amnesty International on Friday denounced Western arms sales to Saudi Arabia and its allies in a coalition battling the Houthis in Yemen, saying such traffic made a "mockery" of a global arms trade treaty.

The rights group accused both the Saudi-led coalition forces and the Iran-allied Houthis of committing potential war crimes in the three-year conflict.

 More than 10,000 people have been killed in Yemen since March 2015 when Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Muslim Arab states launched a military campaign against the Houthis, a group of Shi'ite fighters who had seized the capital and forced President Abd Rabbu Mansour al-Hadi to flee.

 "There is extensive evidence that irresponsible arms flows to the Saudi Arabia-led coalition have resulted in enormous harm to Yemeni civilians," Lynn Maalouf, Director of Research for the Middle East at Amnesty International, said in a statement. 

 "But this has not deterred the USA, the UK and other states, including France, Spain and Italy, from continuing transfers of billions of dollars' worth of such arms. As well as devastating civilian lives, this makes a mockery of the global Arms Trade Treaty."

 The organization said it had documented 36 coalition air strikes since 2015 that appeared to have violated international law, adding that some may amount to war crimes. The documented attacks had killed 513 civilians, including at least 157 children, and wounded 379 others, according to Amnesty. 

 It said the Houthis and their allies had conducted arbitrary arrests and detentions of opponents, and that scores of men and women had been subjected to enforced disappearances and harsh sentences following unfair trails.

 Saudi Arabia and its allies have repeatedly denied allegations of war crimes and say their campaign is directed against Houthi fighters, and not civilians. The Houthi movement has also denied accusations of war crimes.

 Amnesty said that as the conflict enters its fourth year it shows no real signs of abating and that all sides were impeding the delivery of humanitarian aid to at least 22.2 million people in need of assistance and more than one million suffering from suspected cases of cholera.

 The rights group said that despite the loosening of a blockade on Yemeni ports imposed by the Saudi-led coalition, it continues to impose restrictions on aid and commercial imports of essential goods.

 Two rights groups in France said on Friday they would take legal action against the French government unless it halts sales of weapons to Saudi Arabia and its ally the United Arab Emirates within two months.

 Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman discussed the Yemen conflict with President Donald Trump this week during a visit to the United States.

 U.S. Defence Secretary Jim Mattis told Prince Mohammed on Thursday that there was an urgent need to end the war.

 

 (Reporting By Aziz El Yaakoubi; Editing by Ghaida Ghantous and Peter Graff)
Human rights activists accuse forces led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE of kidnapping and torturing people during the Yemeni conflict.