Over the weekend, Yemen’s Houthi rebels released a young model who sometimes appeared without a headscarf and had been imprisoned for nearly five years over alleged violations of local moral codes, which she denied, her lawyer and a security source told AFP on Sunday.
Selfie posted on Intissar al-Hammadi’s Facebook page. Undated photo, obtained on 21 April 2021.
Intissar al-Hammadi, who modelled for local fashion designers, often with her hair uncovered, and shared photos with her thousands of followers on Instagram and Facebook, was arrested in 2021 while on her way to a photo shoot with a friend.
The following year, a local court sentenced the two women to five years’ imprisonment for “fornication”, “prostitution” and “drug use”- charges that were baseless and an affront to women’s freedoms, according to her lawyer and NGOs.
“Intissar al-Hammadi was released last night and is now at home,” her lawyer, Khaled al-Kamal, told AFP on Sunday. “She suffered numerous ills, and her condition deteriorated as a result of the injustices she endured,” he added.
A few months after her arrest, Amnesty International called for the model’s immediate release, stating that she had been “mistreated”, “forced to confess to several offences” and punished for defying “deeply patriarchal” social rules.
Born to an Ethiopian mother and a Yemeni father, Intissar al-Hammadi posted dozens of photos online, in traditional dress, jeans, or a leather jacket, with or without an Islamic headscarf- and also appeared in two local TV series, according to the organisation Human Rights Watch (HRW).
This article is an automatic translation. Click here to read the original article.
