Human Rights Minister Houria Mashhour participated in a demonstration on the grounds of Sana’a’s Central Prison on Sunday. Mashhour’s decision to join the demonstration was made to express solidarity with 22 prisoners who initiated a hunger strike nine days ago.

“I will not leave this place and will go on a hunger strike until the young people who were detained in connection with 2011’s peaceful revolution are released,” she said.

The 22 youths disappeared for eight months after an attack on the Presidential Palace left ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh and senior aides badly injured in May 2011.

15 of the prisoners were from the Central Security Forces and had been charged with guarding Saleh; 5 were from the elite Republican Guard, which were previously commanded by Saleh’s son, Ahmed; and the remaining 2 were civilians.

Around 31 youths from revolutionary squares - including youth representatives from the National Dialogue Conference (NDC) - began demonstrating at the Central Prison a couple days ago.

Mashhour criticized the continued detention of the youths and pointed out that they had neither been charged with nor tried for any crimes.

After noting that President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi had ordered that they be released and Chief Prosecutor Ali Al-Awash had admitted that their detention was illegal, Mashhour wondered aloud why the youths had yet to be released.

“I want to know who rules Yemen and want to understand what is going on here… Is there a shadow government responsible for keeping the youths in prison?” she asked journalists and protesters standing around her.

Mashhour sat down on a cement step and answered questions pitched by journalists and activists alike.

“I think the issue is politically motivated – either that, or it is a matter of political extortion,” she said.

Mashhour said that the 22 young detainees first disappeared for seven months in 2011 and then were moved from the Central Security Forces Prison to the Central Prison.

“There were extrajudicial arrests, illegal detentions and, who knows, these people might have been tortured,” she said.

Meanwhile, prison officials prevented journalists from entering the prison’s interior for the purpose of checking on the status of the imprisoned youths.

Walid Al-Ammari, a revolutionary youth who was present among the protesting supporters, said the detainees’ health had deteriorated and also that they had been transferred to the prison clinic.

“One of them was transferred to the Police Hospital in Sana’a because his condition had reached a critical point,” he said.

Prison Director Al-Zalab arrived at the prison grounds at around 6:00 PM and spoke with Mashhour and journalists.

He said the prison leadership didn’t have authority to release the 22 detainees.

“We, the prison leadership, only implement decisions by prosecutors and the Judiciary,” he said, before adding, “The prison is just a place where we hold people who are referred to us in accordance with official judicial rulings. We can’t take decisions on the fate or release of inmates. We have allowed the media to enter to report on the situation.”

Those protesters who were present at the scene held a loosely-organized press conference and said they wouldn’t conclude their demonstration until their comrades had been released.

Al-Ammari told reporters that they had met with Chief Prosecutor Al-Awash and were shocked by his comments.

“The prosecutor told us that he would look into the files of the detainees. It was a serious problem, that he wasn’t informed about the case after our comrades had been detained for two years.”

He added, “We are determined to do what we can to get them out of the prison as soon as possible. The time has come for actions, and not simply promises which aren’t kept in the end.”

NDC member and youth representative Basim Al-Hakimi said the NDC’s ‘independent youth’ members would suspend their NDC memberships if the government failed to secure the release of the imprisoned youths.

“It’s shameful that people are holding a national dialogue in a five-star luxury hotel while the real revolutionaries, who already were at the forefront of all the country’s moves for change, are still being illegally held,” said Al-Hakimi.

At the conclusion of the news conference, youth supporters chanted refrains, which included ‘Freedom to the young revolutionaries’, ‘Oh, Hadi where is the justice?’, and “Our duty is to secure justice for the detainees’.

Al-Ammari, who served as spokesperson of the 2011 Revolution Coordination Committee, said that some of the detainees had been tortured.

“Some had their fingernails removed and others were given electricity shocks. Because these detainees weren’t affiliated with political parties, no-one searched for them or followed their cases. Only their families and fellow revolutionaries were concerned about their fates.”