Three popular YouTubers in Yemen were sentenced on Tuesday to up to three years in prison for posting videos on social media in which they implicate the Houthi rebels, their lawyer told AFP.
Ahmad Hajar, Moustapha al-Mawmari and Ahmad Elaw, who have several million subscribers on social networks, were charged in January with “
spreading false information
” and “
inciting chaos
”.
They were arrested in December after videos were published criticizing corruption and deteriorating living conditions in the capital Sanaa, which has been held by rebels for more than eight years.
Close to Iran, the Houthis, who are fighting government forces backed by a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia, took Sanaa in 2014, along with large swaths of Yemen.
Houthi military channel videos
The court sentenced Ahmad Elaw, a 32-year-old sports commentator followed by 800,000 Internet users, to three years in prison, Moustapha al-Mawmari, a 29-year-old Youtuber with more than 2 million subscribers, to a year and a half in prison , and Ahmad Hajar, 43 years old and 250,000 subscribers, to one year in prison, their lawyer, Abdel Majid Sabra, told AFP.
They were also sentenced to a fine of 20,000 dollars each, and to delete all their accounts on social networks, added the lawyer.
The day before, the Houthis' military channel had published videos of the three men in which they acknowledge their wrongdoing and apologize for having criticized the Houthis.
Ahmad Hajar was the first to be arrested after accusing the rebels in a video of having "
looted the Yemeni people
".
The war in Yemen has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives since 2015 and plunged the poorest on the Arabian Peninsula into one of the world's worst humanitarian tragedies.
The fighting has largely ceased since the UN brokered a truce last April, although the deal has not been officially extended when it expires in October.