Yemeni government refuses to extend UN Panel of Experts’ mission

The Yemeni Government rejected on Thursday a mission extension for the UN Panel of Experts and accused the UN-appointed team of “politicising and complicating the situation in the country, in addition to being biased in favour of the Houthis.”

According to a statement that Anadolu Agency observed, the government of Yemen expressed its “disappointment with some international mechanisms utilised by the Panel of Experts while dealing with the Yemeni crisis, which led to the politicisation of the mission’s work in a way that adds to the situation’s complexity.”

The  statement, published by the official Yemeni news agency, said that the report issued by the UN-appointed group of regional and international experts had politicised the human rights situation in Yemen to cover up the crime of armed seizure of sovereign Yemeni institutions committed by militias. Accordingly, the Panel of experts showed a clear bias towards the Houthi militias, aiming to create a new condition that is incompatible with the UN Security Council resolutions on Yemen, particularly Resolution 2216.

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The Yemeni Government rejected the possibility of authorising the Panel of Experts for extending their mission in Yemen, since the UN team’s output which was included in the High Commissioner’s report did not meet standards of professionalism, impartiality, and neutrality and the operational methods employed by UN-appointed structures.

The Yemeni authorities also claimed in the statement that the UN Panel’s output turned a blind eye to the violations committed by Houthi militias regarding the international human rights law and international humanitarian law.

The statement called on the international community to provide technical support to the Yemeni National Independent Committee of Inquiry, affiliated to the Yemeni state, by the resolution of the United Nations Human Rights Council. Moreover, the communiqué pledged the Yemeni judicial authorities’ support as stipulated by the judgments of the UNHRC from 2011 to 2017. All this will ensure the implementation of the outputs of the National Independent Committee of Inquiry and the realisation of the principles of accountability, equity, in addition to fighting impunity.

The Yemeni National Independent Committee of Inquiry was established following the orders of President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi in 2012 to investigate all sorts of violations committed by the various conflicting parties in the country.

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The Yemeni Government also called on the international community and the United Nations agencies, in particular, The UNHRC and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, to assist the Yemeni National Independent Committee of Inquiry and to provide it with international and regional expertise, to ensure its success.

In a report issued at the end of last August  on the human rights situation in Yemen, the UN Panel of Experts stated that members of the Yemeni Government and coalition forces, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, in addition to elements from the de facto authorities (Houthi militants) committed acts that could amount to war crimes.

The report confirmed that “the Coalition’s Air Force raids have directly resulted in killing most of the Yemeni civilian casualties so far.”

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The UN Panel of Experts’ output was widely criticised by the Yemeni Government and the Arab Coalition, accusing the Experts team of being aligned with the Houthis.

At the end of September 2017, the UNHRC decided to appoint a committee of prominent international and regional experts with expertise in human rights law and knowledge about the Yemeni context for at least one year, eligible to extension by authorisation.

The mission of the UN Panel is to “conduct a comprehensive study of all alleged human rights violations and breaches of international law committed by all conflicting parties in Yemen since September 2014.”