Houthi authorities arrested dozens of people in the last week of September 2025, as they have in past years, for peacefully celebrating or posting on social media about the anniversary of Yemen's "September 26 Revolution," Human Rights Watch said today.
The holiday marks the establishment of the Yemen Arab Republic in 1962. The Houthis, the de facto authorities who control Yemen's capital, Sanaa, and much of northern Yemen believe that September 21, the day in which they took over Sanaa, should be celebrated instead.
"The Houthis seem to be expending far more resources on arresting people for harmless social media posts than they are on ensuring that people in territories their control have access to food and water," said Niku Jafarnia, Yemen and Bahrain researcher at Human Rights Watch. "The authorities should be protecting people's rights, not silencing anyone commemorating a national holiday."
The Houthis should immediately release all those detained solely for exercising their right to freedom of assembly and speech as well as all others who remain in arbitrary detention, including the dozens of United Nations and civil society staff arrested and disappeared over the last year and a half, Human Rights Watch said.
Starting around September 21, the Houthis began arresting dozens of people in relation to the commemoration of the holiday. Fares al-Hemyari, a Yemeni journalist, posted on X that hundreds of protestors had been arrested in Sanaa, Amran, Hajjah, Dhamar, Al-Bayda, Ibb, and Taizz governorates.
Human Rights Watch spoke to five people whose relatives had been arrested. Many others said they feared reprisals from the Houthis if they spoke to Human Rights Watch about the arrests.
Among those arrested are dozens of activists: Oras al-Eryani, a writer and satirist; Abdul Majeed Sabra, a well-known lawyer; and Aref Mohammed Qatran and Abdulsalam Qatran, the brother and nephew, respectively, of Judge Abdulwahab Qatran. Many of them have not been able to contact their families or a lawyer, and the authorities have refused to let their families know where their relatives are, amounting to enforced disappearance.
A brother of one detainee said that his brother left their house on the evening of September 22 "to throw out the trash and buy some groceries" and never returned. After searching for him for two hours, some family members contacted Houthi security authorities, who would not provide any details about his case.
The brother said that the family were able to confirm "through multiple sources" that the Houthis' Security and Intelligence Service was holding him. However, the brother said that his family was "not officially informed of his whereabouts [by authorities], nor were we allowed to visit or communicate with him, despite repeated promises."
He added that his brother has diabetes, increasing the family's concern for his well-being.
Abdul Majeed Sabra, a prominent lawyer in Sanaa, told Human Rights Watch in 2024 that after he posted on social media that he would provide legal services to lawyers who had been detained in relation to September 26 commemorations, Houthi members "directly threatened" him. On September 25, 2025, Houthi security forces stormed Sabra's office and arrested him.
Abdulwahab Qatran, a prominent judge in Sanaa who himself was previously arrested by the Houthis, said that the Houthis arrested his brother, Aref, along with Aref's son Abdulsalam, on September 21 without any charges. Judge Qatran said that three military vehicles and a taxi arrived at his brother's house in Hamdan and told Aref and Abdulsalam to hand themselves over to the authorities, and that otherwise, "they would take the doors off and storm the house, so [Aref and Abdulsalam] handed themselves over."
The judge said that his brother and nephew were held first at Hamdan Security Complex but moved to an unrevealed location on September 22. The judge said he communicated with them through one of the prisoners' phones. The last call the family had with Aref was on September 22, when he said he has sick and concerned about his life.
The judge said that the authorities did not provide any legal document justifying the arrest, and that he is not aware of whether the authorities have charged them, but he believes the arrest is because that they were planning to commemorate September 26. Later, the Houthis arrested four more people from Qatran's village for commemorating the holiday.
Arresting a person without a warrant and clear charges is a violation under the Yemeni Criminal Procedures Law, article 132. Detaining a person without a basis in domestic or international law, as well as detaining them without promptly charging them, are violations of international human rights law. In their 2023 report, the UN Panel of Experts on Yemen stated that they had documented many cases involving arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, and torture in Yemen, adding that "most violations investigated by the Panel were attributed to the Houthis."
In 2024, Human Rights Watch found that dozens of people had been arrested in relation to the holiday, many without charge. In 2023, Sabra posted that the Houthis had arrested approximately 1,000 people in relation to the anniversary. SAM Organization for Rights and Liberties, a Yemeni human rights organization, found that the Houthis had used excessive force against those peacefully protesting and celebrating.
Houthi authorities have also arbitrarily detained and forcibly disappeared dozens of United Nations and civil society staff since May 31, 2024. Most recently, on August 31, the Houthis detained an additional 19 UN staff.
"The Houthis should stop arresting people for merely exercising their rights and expressing beliefs and opinions that don't align with the Houthis' ideology, and should immediately release all those they have arbitrarily detained," Jafarnia said.
