(Beirut) – Yemen’s President Rashad Al-Alimi on January 12, 2026, called for the closure of all “illegal” prisons in southern Yemen. The sites have been controlled by the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC), a warring party and governing authority in Yemen, as well as other armed groups, throughout Yemen’s decade-long armed conflict. He also called for all those arbitrarily detained to be “immediately released.”
President Al-Alimi’s statement follows the STC’s announcement on January 9 that it was dissolving after a month of fighting between the armed group and Yemeni-government-backed forces and Saudi Arabia.
Human Rights Watch and the Associated Press have previously documented “secret” detention facilities run by both the UAE and UAE-backed forces. Human Rights Watch has also documented widespread arbitrary detentions by all parties to the conflict, including the STC and other UAE-backed groups, the Yemeni government, and the Houthis.
The following quote can be attributed to Niku Jafarnia, Yemen and Bahrain researcher at Human Rights Watch:
“During Yemen’s decade-long war, thousands of people have been unjustly detained throughout the country. The Yemeni authorities and concerned governments should work together to obtain the immediate release of those arbitrarily detained in southern Yemen and provide accountability and reparations. The Yemen government should preserve evidence and immediately grant access to independent investigators to informal detention facilities and secret prisons run by the UAE and UAE-backed Yemeni security forces.”
