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The Houthi group has launched a campaign of abductions of dozens of Ahmadiyya followers in Yemen, in the latest organized attack by the Iran-backed group against religious minorities opposed to it.

Informed sources told Al-Masdar Online that a security campaign by the group during the months of January and February arbitrarily kidnapped more than forty followers of the Ahmadiyya community, including women, and imprisoned them. She pointed out that one of the abductees died of torture he was subjected to in the group’s prisons two days after his release.

The sources added that the group forced most of the abducted Ahmadis to sign pledges to renounce their beliefs under pressure, torture and threats, before releasing them, only four refused to sign those commitments and remain in detention until now.

According to sources, among those currently detained is an elderly woman in her sixties, who was placed in solitary confinement and is in poor health.

Ahmadi leader Mirza Masroor Ahmad has confirmed the presence of“Prisoners”of his group in Yemen, and thatTwo engagements On Friday, March 8 and 29, in one of them, he said that among the captives, “there was a woman whom they had imprisoned and thrown into harsh conditions, in a cramped cell separate from the rest of the Ahmadi captives.”

He called on “Masrour” the fifth caliph of the group, his supporters to pray for the prisoners, and said: “We ask God Almighty to prepare from him the reasons to release them all sooner, and to remove what is in the hearts of the rulers there of mistrust towards our group.”

The sources said that one of the most prominent kidnapped is Dr. Mansour Al-Shabouti, a consultant general surgeon at Dr. Abdul Qader Al-Mutawakel Hospital in Sana’a, who was kidnapped by the group on January 12, and released two weeks later, to die one day later, on the 26th of the month, as a result of the severe torture he was subjected to in the group’s prisons.

Yemeni governmental, local and human rights sources had confirmed the death of al-Shabouti in late January as a result of torture in Houthi prisons, and condemned the recognized government by Minister of Information “Heinous crime of liquidation”, the Association denouncedMothers of abducteesIn a statement, a “non-governmental human rights activist” kidnapped the doctor “after besieging the area where he lives (in Sana’a) and then breaking into his house and taking him to an unknown destination.”

According to a statement issued by Diaspora OrganizationThe kidnapped Shabouti “was in good health before he was detained without knowing the reason for the detention or the party and for two weeks to appear before his death in very poor health,” adding: “It has been noted that similar incidents have been experienced by doctors and academics in Yemen.”

These sources did not reveal the reason for the doctor’s abduction and torture, until Ahmadi leader Mirza Masroor appeared in his Friday sermon, January 9, to say that Dr. Al-Shabouti “was a prisoner for the sake of God in Yemen, was arrested for belonging to Ahmadiyya, and died during his captivity on twenty-six January at the age of sixty-three.”

“He was in prison and imprisoned because of Ahmadiyya, he did not have access to proper treatment in captivity and may have been subjected to harsh treatment as well. He is the first Ahmadi martyr in Yemen. He left behind two sons, Ayman, Bilal, his elderly mother and his wife.”

“His grandfather, Abdullah Mohammed Othman al-Shabouti, was the first Yemeni Ahmadi and his father, Mahmoud Abdullah al-Shabouti, was the first Yemeni to graduate as a preacher,” he said.

Masrour quoted “the brother of the martyr, Sayyid Nasser al-Shabouti in his biographical statement: “Yes, the brother was affectionate and loving and was the faithful advisor to his brothers. He was smart in his studies and was one of the top ten students at the level of the Republic and was honored by the state. He was committed to performing the five daily prayers, the Tahajjud prayer, and reading the Qur’an after the Fajr prayer and was paying donations non-stop and generously.”

“He was helping and treating the distant before the near. He always smiled at the patients and did not take any wages from them if they were poor, but gave up his wages for the operation he performed for them. He was righteous to his parents and took them himself to perform the Hajj and took care of them.”

Ahmadiyya (Qadianism as Muslims call it) is a branched offshoot of Islam, founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in Qadian, Punjab, British India (present-day Pakistan), in the nineteenth century (1889). His group says he is the “awaited Mahdi” and “the Messiah,” and that the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, heralded his coming.

The headquarters of JamaataIn Pakistan, before the Pakistani government came under popular pressure after independence from India and classified it as a local non-Islamic group, and its headquarters move to London, it also has headquarters and centers in Germany, Canada, Britain, the United States, Brazil, Russia and many Western countries, and is spread little in the Arab region.

The number of Ahmadis in Yemen is estimated at dozens, and one of the sources who spoke to “Al-Masdar Online” said that they are about 100 people, while press reports previously said that they amount to about 300, and that their first appearance in Yemen was at the beginning of the twentieth century, in Aden during the British occupation.

The Houthis have not yet announced the reasons for the campaign against Ahmadis, but the group has a long history of deliberate and systematic repression and human rights violations against violators, especially members of religious minorities in the areas under its control.

In recent years, the group has targeted dozens of members of the Baha’i community, displaced a number of them after months of abduction and sentenced them to exile and confiscation of their property, while a number of them remain detained.

The group refuses to release the Baha’is, despite widespread local and international calls and appeals by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the European Parliament and others, demanding their release, while human rights sources say that the group aims to target Baha’is and deport them outside the country to loot their money, especially since most of them work in commerce and are well-off.