Yemen Still Sentences Children to Death by Firing Squad

Tik Root | The Atlantic

SANA'A, YEMEN -- On Saturday, Mohammed Haza'a was put to death by the Yemeni government despite legitimate questions as to whether he was under the age of 18 when he committed an alleged murder.

In 1999, Mohammed shot an intruder at his home in the central Yemeni city of Tiaz. The man later died of his wounds. Various judges, including the one who made the initial ruling, determined that the killing was self-defense and that Mohammed was underage at the time of the crime. Ignoring these concerns, an appeals court eventually sentenced him to death.

George Abu Al-Zulof, a child protection specialist at UNICEF, describes in chilling detail how firing squads carry out their orders. "They put them on the ground, they cover them with the blanket and then a doctor comes and points around the heart from the back side. Then they shoot three to four bullets [into] the heart."

Mohammed's execution was denounced by the European Union and comes on the heels of a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report condemning the Yemeni government's use of the juvenile death penalty. Released last week, the report makes clear that international law, to which Yemen is a signatory, "prohibits, without exception, the execution of individuals for crimes committed before they turn 18."

Nevertheless, Bede Sheppard, a senior researcher at HRW, said that there is still a "very small and unpleasant club" made up of four countries - Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Sudan -which continue to carry out the practice. The United States could be included in that group until as recently as 2005, when the Supreme Court finally outlawed the death penalty for minors.

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A shake up in Yemen’s GPC?

Tik Root | Foreign Policy

Facing perhaps its biggest crisis yet, Yemen's ruling party of over three decades, the General People's Congress (GPC), is in desperate need of reform. As one of the only ruling parties to have survived a widespread Arab Spring uprising, it is now navigating uncharted territory. While the party and its leader, former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, are doing infinitely better than their imprisoned, exiled, dead, or dismantled counterparts across the Middle East and North Africa, the party's continued relevance and prosperity is by no means guaranteed, a reality to which it is struggling to adjust. 

Formed in 1982 by Saleh, then president of the northern Yemen Arab Republic (YAR), the GPC was created to counter the rise of dissident leftist groups, like the National Democratic Front. Over time, the GPC grew into the country's dominant political force, winning the most seats in the first national elections held after the unification of the YAR and the southern People's Democratic Republic of Yemen in 1990. In the last parliamentary elections held in Yemen, in 2003, the party won 76 percent of seats. But, by the time the Arab Spring broke out the GPC was more a collection of powerful elites living off access to government coffers than a political party in the democratic sense of the term. Hardly bound to public opinion, the GPC ruled with relative impunity and only occasional resistance from the country's pseudo opposition coalition (the Joint Meeting Parties, or JMP). In hindsight, it is not surprising that the party became a primary target of revolutionaries. 

Yemen's popular uprising that began in January 2011 brought millions of protesters to the streets. Activists called for the "fall of the regime," and events often turned bloody, with more than 2,000 deaths reported by Yemen's human rights minister. In November 2011, after many delays, Saleh finally signed an internationally brokered Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) agreement to relinquish the presidency. In February 2012, President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi was elected in a one-man race called for under the GCC transition plan. Over this turbulent period the GPC's popularity, membership, and monopoly on government resources took a predictably hard hit. Now, with fewer spoils to go around and the need to mobilize support, the GPC will have to evolve into a more self-sustaining entity.

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Gun Control, Yemen-Style

Tik Root | The Atlantic

SANA'A, YEMEN -- With shops lining the main road and hard bargaining merchants abounding, Jihana appears to be your average Yemeni market. But instead of shopping for food or clothes, customers peruse a vast assortment of glocks, pistols, AK47s, M16s, anti-aircraft artillery, bazookas, and nearly any other weapon short of an actual tank. 

"In Yemen, no matter if you're rich or poor, you must have guns. Even if it's just one piece," insists Abdul Wahab al-Ammari, a tribal sheikh from Yemen's Ibb province who resides in Sana'a, citing self-protection as the primary driver of gun ownership. "I have maybe 14 high powered weapons, and 3 handguns [at home]."

Americans, spurred by the tragic shootings in Newton, Aurora, and elsewhere, clearly aren't alone in their need to discuss gun control. Yemen, the second most heavily-armed country in the world per capita after the U.S., has a completely unique set of challenges as it wrestles with the question of what, if anything, can be done to address the demand of average citizens to bear arms.

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Yemen Explores Alternative Energy

Casey Coombs and Tik Root | Voice of America

SANA'A — The Republic of Yemen, unlike its oil-rich neighbors on the Arabian peninsula, has been forced to explore alternative forms of energy to offset low crude oil production.

But while desperate government officials in the capital Sana’a scramble to revive an economy shattered by last year’s anti-government uprisings, renewable energy investments remain on the back burner.
 
In the face of the uprisings, the Yemeni government and international actors froze millions of dollars earmarked for alternative energy projects and in many cases redirected the funds to what they considered more urgent priorities.

One such project, a 60 megawatt wind farm in Al Mokha city, had been stalled since Yemen’s political upheavals began, but is “now moving,” according to Wael Zakout, country manager of Yemen’s World Bank office.

Located along Yemen’s southern Red Sea coast, the proposed site overlooks the Bab Al Mandeb Strait, a waterway through which more than three million barrels of crude oil shipments sail daily. Currently, Yemen produces about 1,000 megawatts of electricity nationwide - about a third of consumer demand.

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YEMEN: Wind and solar energy fall short of potential

Tik Root | IRIN News

SANA’A, 6 December 2012 (IRIN) - Thirteen years ago electronics retailer Abdulmajeed al-Wahbani was one of the first people in Yemen to venture into the solar power business. So far the gamble has paid off.

His solar panel supply business found a niche and has seen impressive growth, while also helping to fight rural poverty.

"People need to work, and to secure their business and their life, they will go to solar power," he told IRIN.

He said his rapid business growth is tied to a negative trend in Yemen - increasingly frequent and lengthy power outages over the past decade, especially during the political instability last year. Power cuts can sometimes last for weeks, acting as a brake on the economy, outside major cities.

In 2013 he is planning a nationwide advertising campaign to promote renewable energy - something he hopes will spread to the "entire country". While that goal may seem ambitious, both the need and potential for renewable energy in Yemen are high.

Yemen's western coast, from Bab al-Mandab to Al-Mokha, rates among the windiest corridors in the world, while the country's frequently clear skies make it a prime candidate for solar power. More modest geothermal potential also exists.

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