One of Yemen’s most prominent political analysts and activists is being held incommunicado, without access to a lawyer or his family, after he was detained in Sana’a by the Houthi rebels that control the city. Hisham al-Omeisy has been a rare on-the-ground commentator during Yemen’s civil war, and has been critical of both sides in his outspoken Twitter posts.

He is understood to have been detained on 14 August in Sana’a’s Jawlat al-Misbah neighbourhood. The Iran-backed Houthis are allied with Yemen’s former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, and have been in conflict with forces loyal to another president, the ousted Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, since 2015. A military intervention led by Saudi Arabia aimed at reinstating Hadi has exacerbated a dire humanitarian situation. Omeisy’s last post on Twitter indicated that “armed” forces had showed up at his doorstep. He is now being held in an undisclosed location.(theguardian)…[+]