Yemeni security forces under fire after 'execution' of southern activist

Activists and rights groups have reacted with rage after the killing on Monday of a Yemeni political activist calling for the secession of the country’s southern provinces.

Khalid al-Junaidi, a long-time proponent of self-rule for Yemen’s south, was gunned down by five masked officers from the Yemeni security services during a peaceful demonstration in Aden.

Junaidi was documenting a strike in the southern port city of Aden, taking photographs from his car, when he was ordered out by masked men wearing security forces uniforms.

He was then shot at close range by one of the officers - graphic images circulating on social media appear to show that Junaidi died of a single bullet wound to the chest.

A man who was travelling with Junaidi was also injured in the attack, though little is known about his current condition.

Junaidi was a leader in the Herak Movement, the southern separatist movement that has recently stepped up its calls for self-determination in Yemen’s south, where residents say they have long been marginalised and ignored by politicians in the northern capital of Sana’a.

Responding to news of his death, much of Aden erupted in rage; activists blocked several main streets, setting fire to tyres and preventing traffic from moving in much of the city of Aden.

Tawakkol Karman, a prominent northern activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, called Junaidi’s killing "a fresh crime” against the people of Aden southern Yemenis in general.

Karman condemned Yemen’s security services for acting like “peaceful lambs” towards militias in control of the capital, while cracking down on southern independence activists like “fierce lions”.

Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, was taken over in September by armed Houthi rebels, who met little opposition from security forces stationed there.

Calls for investigation

Amnesty International condemned the killing on Monday, calling it an “extrajudicial execution prompted by…Junaidi’s peaceful activism”.

The international human rights group called for a speedy investigation, demanding that “all those responsible are brought to justice, including anyone who ordered the killing.”

“The Yemeni authorities have an obligation under international law to ensure that an independent, impartial and prompt investigation into this killing is conducted,” the monitor said in a statement on Monday.

Later on Monday, a Yemeni security source said that a commission had been set up to investigate the killing, which the source alleged came after officers exchanged fire with “armed militants.”

According to the source, quoted in local daily Aden al-Ghad, the officers involved have already been taken off front-line duty pending a criminal investigation.

Junaidi’s family have said he will be buried on Tuesday, and have called on all southerners to participate in his funeral - the ceremony will likely be a flashpoint for further demonstrations and shows of anger, amid escalating tensions over the issue of independence for south Yemen.

Junaidi was killed two weeks after being released from a three-week spell of detention without charge.

The activist had previously been imprisoned on multiple occasions, allegedly as a result of his political organising. He was jailed once in 2013 and twice during 2011. On one occasion, Junaidi reported that while in detention he had been hung by his wrists with handcuffs for 23 hours a day for seven days.

Junaidi’s killing comes at a time of heightened tension between the security services and secession activists, who have been holding weekly demonstrations calling for independence.

The port city of Aden is traditionally considered the capital of south Yemen, and on Monday was the site for a “day of rage” targeting government institutions and education centres as well as privately owned and government banks.

According to a statement released by the pro-independence campaign group, Democratic Federation of South Arabia, ahead of Junaidi’s killing, Monday’s civil disobedience was “the second step of non-violent escalation” in the group’s long-running campaign for independence for Yemen’s southern provinces.

A photograph from an early-morning protest appears to show men in red berets and military fatigues participating in a sit-in that blocked one of Aden’s main streets on Monday.