Defend Yemeni people confronting Saudi aggression

Following is a statement for a petition received from the Kolkata, India, based International Anti-imperialist Coordinating Committee (IACC) on May 28.  

Following the various forms of Saudi-led  aggression against Yemen, without distinction between persons and things, since March 26, 2015, causing the death of hundreds of Yemenis, be these children, women, old people, etc. …

Feeling painful vis-à-vis this people’s grievance as a result of the aggression against a sovereign state, member of the United Nations and Arab League, in a confrontation of a people looking for future and self-determination, as well as getting out of dependency.

Since this aggression against Yemen and Yemenis is unjustified, this imposes a duty on the Arab and Islamic worlds and all free people all over the world to sustain this struggling people against Saudi-led killing and its destructive apparatus.

We call upon you to take part in launching a large defensive campaign for the right of Yemenis to face off Saudi-led aggression and its impacts and to call its perpetrators to account notably after posing a threat to the international peace and safety and committing dangerous international crimes punishable under international law and modernized nations’ laws, most notably:

1. The crime of aggression represented, pursuant to the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3314 and the statute of the International Criminal Court (repeated in article 8), by the use of armed force against territories’ safety, sovereignty or political independence of another state … through bombarding this state or attacking its armed forces since March 26, 2015.

2. War crimes represented, pursuant to the statute of the International Criminal Court (Article 8), by committing gross violations of Geneva Accords through deliberate killing, causing severe suffering for people, vast destruction of properties and conducting attacks against civilian locations as a part of a “plan, general policy or in the framework of a large-scale operation.” A Yemeni army spokesman announced hundreds of civilian deaths and the destruction of thousands of housing units, hundreds of civil facilities as well as health, educational and archaeological sites.

3. Crimes against humanity based, according to the Statute of the International Criminal Court (Article 7), upon a large-scale or systematic attack against a group of civilians with the aim of perpetrating deliberate killing, genocide and various nonhuman acts causing severe suffering to people. Saudi-led aggression has been exerting violations against civilians and civil facilities within a large-scale comprehensive war.

4. The crime of genocide based, according to 1948 convention and the statute of the International Criminal Court, upon intentionally abolishing a national, ethnic, racial or religious group — partly or completely — through murdering, physically inflicting or subjugating individuals of the group to harsh conditions.  Aggressors have been surrounding Yemeni shores, bombarding transportations carrying essential food and relief stuffs, and targeting food industries in order to starve and abolish — even partly — Yemeni people considered as fighters and actors against their will.

All these crimes have been perpetrated before the world’s very eyes. Let’s work together to stop them from killing this struggling people and not to let the perpetrators go scot-free.

To sign the petition, which has also been published in Arabic, French and Spanish, go to this link: http://www.medhr.org/default1.aspx