Madam President,

The Bahá’í International Community welcomes the Council’s ongoing attention to human rights concerns in Yemen, including the right to freedom of religion or belief. Yet, Bahá’ís in Houthi-controlled areas continue to face persecution and are denied the freedom to practice their faith.

Bahá’ís have long been integral to Yemen’s social fabric, contributing to education, medicine, and engineering, as well as supporting humanitarian relief. 

However, since 2014, Houthi authorities have led a systematic campaign of hate speech and incitement against Bahá’ís, through media, religious sermons, and educational curricula. Houthi leaders have vilified the Bahá’í Faith as foreign and heretical, branding its members as spies, while urging hostility and violence. This closely parallels Iran’s longstanding anti-Bahá’í propaganda.

Such rhetoric has consequences, including the storming of peaceful Bahá’í gatherings, arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, torture, imprisonment, exile, and death sentences as documented by the Special Procedures. 

Madam President, orchestrated hate speech constitutes incitement to hostility and violence, and is in clear breach of Yemen’s international obligations.

As this Council prepares its resolution on Yemen, it is imperative that the rights of Bahá’ís be explicitly affirmed by name, sending a clear message of the international community’s disapproval of Houthi conduct.

Thank you.