Fatma al-Arwali, a 34-year-old mother and woman human rights defender is at risk of execution after the Huthi authorities in Yemen sentenced her to death following a grossly unfair trial. Since her arrest in August 2022, the Huthi’s security and intelligence service have subjected Fatma to a number of human rights violations.

Fears for Fatma’s life mounted after her brother received a phone call from an unknown number and was told that she will be executed in early 2024 in Sana’a, Yemen’s capital. He visited the security and intelligence service centre and officials denied there was an order to execute her.

Fatma is a former head of the Yemen office of the Women Leadership Union of the Arab League and was active in promoting women’s rights.

Huthi security forces arrested Fatma in August 2022. They subjected her to enforced disappearance, a crime under international law. For about eight months, her family looked for her in every police station and prison in Sana’a, while authorities denied them any information about her fate and whereabouts.

Fatma al-Arwali has been denied her right to a fair trial. The judge refused to record the presence of her lawyer in the court record during the first hearing. Members of the security and intelligence service tried to remove Fatma’s lawyer from the court. The judge then told Fatma that there was no need for a lawyer.

Fatma told the judge that she was being held in cruel and inhuman conditions in a room underground. She also requested to see her children.

On 5 December 2023, a court convicted Fatma of “aiding an enemy country” and sentenced her to death.

Since 2015, Amnesty International has documented the cases of over 60 individuals, who have been brought before the courts in Yemen, including journalists, human rights defenders, political opponents, and members of religious minorities who were subjected to unfair trials on spurious or trumped-up charges by this court. Virtually all of them have been tried on spying charges, which are punishable by death under Yemeni law.

Sign the petition urging the Huthi de facto authorities to immediately quash the conviction and death sentence of Fatma al-Arwali, so she can be reunited with her children.