Yemen’s Houthi Grand Mufti targets Baha’is—UN Security Council to consider Yemen next week

 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A bloodcurdling sermon filled with disinformation and hate against Yemen’s Baha’i community was delivered at Friday prayers on 2 June, in the capital Sanaa, by the Houthi’s Grand Mufti Shams al-Din Sharaf al-Din. The sermon, which lasted for more than an hour and which focused in large part on castigating the Baha’is, was also published on the internet.

The sermon came after armed and masked Houthi gunmen stormed a peaceful Baha’i gathering, on 25 May, where they detained 17 people, including 5 women, and took them to unknown locations managed by the Houthi security services. One individual has since been released. The Baha’i International Community (BIC) has reason to believe that the detainees are being mistreated in custody.

The Grand Mufti confirmed the arrest of the 17 Baha’is by security services before leveling several false and incendiary allegations, claiming that the Baha’i community is supported by foreign powers and had plans to harm the country.

“What does it say about the intentions of the Houthis when their Grand Mufti devotes an entire Friday prayer sermon to denouncing, demonizing and spreading vicious disinformation about the peaceful Baha’i community?” said Bani Dugal, the BIC’s Principal Representative to the United Nations. “We know from history that hate speech is the first step when those in power wish to incite violence against at-risk minorities.”

The Mufti claimed that the Baha’i Faith spreads thanks to the “generous support of Britain, America and the Jews,” before insisting that the Baha’is are “dangerous and secretly mislead the people and corrupt young men and women.”

He also impugned the moral integrity of Baha’is in family and financial matters. Both claims are absurd and intended to incite hatred and suspicion about the Bahá’ís in the minds of the congregants and the people of Yemen.

The Grand Mufti further emphasized that anyone who changes their religion from Islam should be killed.

The latest outpouring hate speech follows 2018 public remarks by the Houthi leader, Abdel-Malek al-Houthi, in which he warned Yemenis of the “satanic” Baha’i “movement” that was “waging a war of doctrine” against Islam. Mr. al-Houthi urged Yemenis to defend their country from the Baha’is under the pretext that “those who destroy the faith in people are no less evil and dangerous than those who kill people with their bombs.”

“The de facto Houthi authorities are stoking insecurity and instability in Yemen by inciting their own long-suffering people against the innocent Baha’is, and ignoring real issues that need to be addressed in Yemen,” Ms. Dugal added. “The allegations made by the Houthis mirror those same threadbare accusations made over the past 44 years in Iran which no one any longer believes. While governments across the Arab region are striving for peace and looking to the future, the Houthis continue to violate the rights of the Baha’is and many others in Yemen, and by inciting their people against minorities they are driving them into the past and into the ground. The international community responded to last week’s arrests of the Baha’is with outrage; this must now be doubled, tripled and intensified without pause, until all detained Baha’is are freed.”