Independent UN experts urge Yemen’s Houthis to free detained Baha'i followers
Human rights experts working for the United Nations are urging Yemen’s Houthi rebels to release five people from the country’s Baha’i religious minority who have been in detention for a year. The experts said on Monday that the five are among 17 Baha'i followers detained last May when the Houthis raided a Baha'i gathering in the capital of Sanaa. The experts say 12 have since been released “under very strict conditions." A spokesman for the Houthis didn’t return a request for comment. The Baha'i have been particularly vulnerable to persecution and pressure to convert to Islam by the Houthis.