Contact: YACC.NY@gmail.com
New York – today Thursday, February 2, the Yemeni-American community held a press conference to condemn the visit to the U.S. of Dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen and to demand accountability for crimes against the people of Yemen.
Introductory remarks to the press conference by Ibraham Qatabi of the Yemeni American Coalition for Change:
“This morning, at the National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama affirmed the role that values common to Americans of all faiths should play in leading the United States toward just and righteous policies. He called upon Americans to match our deeds to the loftiness of our words. We have come here today to call on President Obama to do the same, and to adopt a policy that respects the dignity and fundamental rights of the millions of Yemenis who have struggled peacefully to secure those rights over the past year.”
Statement by the Yemeni American Coalition for Change- YACC
The Yemeni-American community, the Arab American community, New Yorkers and rights and solidarity groups in support of the Yemeni peaceful revolution have come here today to express deep disappointment with the Obama administration for allowing Ali Abdullah Saleh, a dictator with the blood of peaceful protesters on his hands, to come to the U.S. under the protection of legal immunity.
In the past year, Saleh and his supporters have murdered, injured, kidnapped and tortured countless Yemeni citizens, the overwhelming majority of whom have been engaged in nothing more than a peaceful but uncompromising demand for political and civil rights. For the past 33 years, he has thwarted the freedom and the rights that he has promised to safeguard and that have been guaranteed by the Yemeni constitution. We are greatly dissatisfied, therefore, that the U.S. has disregarded the cries of the protestors and, instead, chose to side with a dictator. As Americans, we are unhappy that U.S. taxpayer money has been used to supply the weapons used against the protestors, and is now being used to protect Saleh in New York.
In November of 2011, after months of protests, Saleh signed the initiative proposed by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Under this plan, Saleh has been given full immunity and has, therefore, been absolved of the crimes he has committed against the Yemeni people. This plan was adopted by the Joint Meeting Parties alliance to put an end to the bloodletting, but it never represented the will of a majority of the youth and people of the revolution, who were excluded from the negotiations and have continued to reject the immunity provision, in particular.
As stipulated by the GCC initiative, on February 21st, 2012 elections will be held in Yemen. Only one man will stand for election, the hand-picked successor of President Saleh, Abdo Rabo Mansour Hadi, a military man whohas served as Saleh’s Vice President since 1994. Again, this is a provision accepted by the JMP to end the killing, but it is an embarrassment to the idea of a democratic Yemen. The is a selection, not an election, and will allowing Saleh’s regime to continue its dominance and repression.
Given the crimes of this dictator, we demand that his immunity – granted by a parliament stocked with his loyalists since 2003 and supported by the U.S – be revoked and that he stand trial for the injustices he has committed against Yemen and its people. We call on the US to hand over his case to the ICC, where he can be held to account for his crimes. We demand that the upcoming elections be fair and transparent, with more than one candidate represented and that the Yemeni people be fully represented.
In solidarity with the people of Yemen,
-YACC
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The Yemeni American Coalition for Change (YACC) is an advocacy and solidarity group comprised of activists, professionals, students, teachers and concerned Yemeni-Americans, representing various Yemeni-American organizations, all uniting to support the peaceful revolution in Yemen and to see an end to violence against the protesters who demand freedom and an end to the vicious regime of Yemen’s current president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Website: http://yaccny.org/
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