SANA’A, July 11 — Horia Mashhoor, Yemen’s minister of human rights, said certain detainees, currently in Yemeni prisons, have not been released despite presidential and ministerial orders.

Mashhoor said some security departments rejected these orders and refused to release the arrestees, particularly youth detained in relation to last year’s unrest.

The Ministry of Interior gave orders Tuesday to release all those detained during 2011 and 2012 due to outspoken views.

Mashhoor called upon the General Prosecutor to pay visits to all security departments to file cases against those accused of torturing and oppressing uncharged detainees.

She said she conveyed the arrested people’s case to the Yemeni Prime Minister and to the head of the military committee, a committee established to settle peace and security in Sana’a, but no final decision has yet been reached.

Activists in Change Square in Sana’a, along with human right activists from different civil society organizations, began to demand the release of arrestees several months ago.

Abdulrahman Barman, a prominent human rights lawyer, said most of the detained youth were arrested by National Security and Political Security.  

According to Barman, 23 people are being tortured in a National Security prison established recently in a building in Sana’a.

He said those arrestees aren’t allowed to sleep for longer than a few minutes. Moreover, they are prevented from talking to each other; they receive one meal every three days and are given salt water to drink to increase their thirst.

Shawqi Al-Mekhlafi, head of the Youth Committee for Advocating the Arrested Revolutionary Youth, said the legal committee in Change Square has lists of hundreds of revolutionary detainees who were arrested during protests. He asserted that many arrestees were taken to undisclosed locations.

The Yemeni government has issued a decree that ordered the release of detainees as a matter of urgency.