Kate Nevens looks at some of the misplaced Western support for Yemen’s Houthi movement.

In the summer of last year, I returned home from a holiday in the Western Isles to a devastating message from a close Yemeni friend. More than 70 Yemenis had been forcibly disappeared, taken from their homes and families and workplaces by the Houthi group, also known as Ansar Allah, a militia currently in control of much of the North of the country. Those taken included people who worked with local Yemeni community organisations, international and local humanitarian and development NGOs, as well as Yemenis who worked with the UN. Women were detained with their young children. Their whereabouts were mostly unknown, families were struggling to get messages through and our networks were having difficulty even identifying exactly who had been taken, because of the dangers of asking too many questions. What we did know: everyone taken was likely to be subject to torture. A flurry of group chat messages started up between those of us outside of the country who could more safely speak, all of us heartbroken by the news, and terrified.

I’ve been working with Yemeni civil society and activist groups for almost two decades. Initially this involved working in solidarity with youth and women’s groups who were seeking a greater role in decision-making in the country, but it quickly became clear that the end goal was much more radical: in 2010, these youth and women spearheaded the Yemeni revolution, part of the ‘Arab Spring’ that was sweeping the region and ultimately saw the downfall of the Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. At the time, members of the political and youth wings of the Houthi group were also part of this peaceful movement – and the groups I was working with – putting down their guns to stand alongside the artists, activists and citizen journalists demanding change.

Many of those who were abducted last year are people I met during the early days of the revolution, and who I continued to work with in the aftermath and in peacebuilding efforts when conflict ultimately broke out. Some are close friends.

The Crackdown on Civil Society

In the months that followed the June abductions, I began working closely with friends and colleagues inside and outside of Yemen to help try and bring attention to what was happening, and prompt the UN and other international organisations to take a more active approach to both securing the release of the abductees and protecting Yemeni civil society actors and organisations more broadly. I took on some small digital security roles for local NGOs. I repeatedly emailed my contacts in positions of influence, asking them to dedicate some time and resources to what was happening.  I worried about how to contact friends in Sana’a and elsewhere who were highly at risk, wanting to offer support but not wanting to make things harder. Together, over 150 of us issued this statement, calling for the immediate release of the detained. Although a small handful of people have since been released, very little has changed, and for the most part the ‘story’ has dropped off the radar.  Many more Yemeni organisations and individuals have been named by the Houthis as ‘next on the list.’

The June disappearances were not a new tactic in the Houthis’ efforts to crack down on humanitarian and civil society work in the country, but they were a marked escalation: unlawful detentions on an unprecedented scale. The Houthi authorities allege that these more recent detentions are part of dismantling an “American-Israeli spy network”, and are increasingly drawing on the authoritarian playbook of Egypt’s Sisi, Russia’s Putin and others with televised forced confessions, trumped up ‘charges’, and zero due process. They also form part of a wider crackdown on rights and freedoms that the Houthis have been imposing on civil society and citizens during  the past decade of civil war, with increasing restrictions on women’s movements, access to education and healthcare, preventing aid organisations accessing local vulnerable populations, and monitoring, censoring and threatening artists and journalists who do not fall directly in line with the Houthi agenda.

The Houthis and Palestine

The Houthis in Yemen, however, have been making headline news over the last 12 months not for their human rights abuses and oppressive tactics against Yemeni civil society, but because of their actions against Israel. Over the past year, the Houthis have been directing much of their military power towards disrupting shipping and navy operations in the Red Sea, including hijacking vessels, and launching missiles towards Israel. In a speech in October 2023, the Houthi leader Abdul Malik Al-Houthi said that “the Yemeni people are thus ready to do everything they can to perform the sacred duty of standing with the Palestinian people” and that “our people are ready to move in the hundreds of thousands to join the Palestinian people and confront the enemy.” Israel, alongside the US and the UK – keen to protect both Israel and the shipping lanes – have responded with airstrikes in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, including strikes which have caused civilian damage. As a military insurgency, the Houthis have always proved remarkably resilient to bombing campaigns, and all these attacks do is reinforce the Houthis position and put citizens further at risk.

Their actions against Israel are winning the Houthis plaudits among the left in the United States and Europe, including here in Scotland. It’s become almost the norm at the regular demos, sit-ins and fundraising events in Glasgow and Edinburgh to hear someone talk about the Houthis as friends and allies in our fight against Western imperialism. At the same time, the Houthis actions in the Red Sea are attracting the attention of the conservative-leaning ‘international security’ community, delighted to find a new angle for their emotion-free, realpolitik geopolitical analysis, and largely framing the Houthis as a proxy for Iran in wider regional and international dynamics. In both narratives, the oppressive domestic agenda of the Houthis, and the experiences of the Yemenis who live in fear under Houthi control, are sidelined, not deemed useful to our pre-existing worldviews.

“It is deeply painful to witness people cheering for a radical group responsible for the destruction of our lives,” my Yemeni friend Saber tells me, “I used to actively participate in pro-Palestinian rallies at the onset of the conflict, even standing for hours outside major buildings in Edinburgh, solemnly reciting the names of civilians who had lost their lives. However, I found it unbearable when I began hearing chants at several rallies in support of the Houthis, such as: “Houthi, Houthi, make us proud, turn another ship around.”

Composer Saber and his wife Shatha, a painter, moved to Edinburgh in 2020 in the depths of the Scottish winter and a covid lockdown, having fled the Houthi controlled city of Sana’a. They had survived a relentless bombing campaign by the Saudi-led coalition, but what ultimately forced them to seek exile was the threats they were receiving from the Houthi authorities for their lives as artists, particularly Shatha for being a female painter with a public profile. Saber feels like his criticisms of the Houthis falls on deaf ears here in Scotland, that there’s a wilful refusal to acknowledge the reality of Yemeni lives in the country if it’s not part of the story people want to hear. The narrow perspective of the Houthis as an ally in the fight for Palestinian liberation “fails to grasp the complexities of the Yemeni civil war and views the situation without a deeper understanding of Yemen’s internal dynamics and historical context,” he tells me.

“I do not blame the Palestinians on the ground, who are desperate for any form of support amid the dire circumstances they face and the isolation they endure,” says Saber, “However, it is profoundly disheartening to see far-left movements and activists in Scotland glorify a violent and abusive group. This is unacceptable; Yemeni lives are no less valuable than Palestinian lives.”

Two Truths at Once

As I write this article, a tentative ceasefire has come into force in Gaza (though notably, on day four, Israeli violence appears to be escalating in the West Bank). Speeches by Abdul Malik al-Houthi suggest that while they may be willing to put their own attacks in the Red Sea on a short hiatus, they will continue to oppose Israel militarily until “all Palestine is liberated.” On the surface, this appears to be about support for Palestine, but in reality, it effectively draws attention away from their domestic violations and inability – or lack of desire – to provide basic services.  In the meantime, Yemeni citizens in the North of the country remain trapped in a quagmire of Houthi authoritarian control, collapsing economy and basic services, and the rising risks of being caught up in airstrikes. Even Yemenis living outside of Houthi-controlled areas, particularly those working for local NGOs and who need to travel and continue to communicate with their peers in the North, fear what it might mean if the Houthis continue to ramp up their domestic territorial aspirations and crackdowns on civic space.

We need to be capable of holding two truths evident at once, as many Yemenis are able to do. We stand in solidarity with Palestine; but not everyone who is an enemy of Israel is a friend of ours. We can equally call out the horrendous abuses of Palestinians by the Israeli state, as we can the abuses of Yemeni citizens and civil society by the Houthis. Those of us who are part of leftist solidarity movements here in Scotland can take this moment to organise for the Yemenis we have largely ignored — marching for their rights and freedoms as well as for an end to the UK and US bombings, working with the Yemeni community here to mend the bridges that risk being burned. “I once had a conversation with an activist – regarding the Houthis’ role in responding to the Israeli genocide in Gaza – who told me, ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’,” says Saber. “I responded by saying, ‘Well, the Houthis are my enemy – they have directly threatened my life and forced me into exile. But that will never make Zionism my friend or a heroic movement.’”

Kate Nevens is an activist and freelancer based in Edinburgh who has been working with community groups in Yemen and the wider Middle East for around 15 years.