Arhab Meeting

News Yemen, which is run by Nabil al-Sufi, has an absolutely fascinating article today on a tribal meeting that was convened by the Arhab tribe in an attempt to decide how to respond to the arrests of several of its young men.

The meeting took place at Qa’a al-Zafaq the historic meeting place for Arhab. No word on whether Shaykh ‘Abd al-Majid al-Zindani or Abdillah Haydar Shay’a, two of Arhab’s more prominent members these days attended the meeting.

The problem seems to revolve around the disappearance of Muhammad ‘Ali Haniq, a former mujahidin in Afghanistan (presumably during the 1980s) who is a brother of a tribal shaykh Mansur ‘Ali Haniq, who is also a member of parliament.

Many of the shaykhs at the meeting expressed frustration with the government over several recent arrests of individuals who they claim have not violated any law. (For those with an interest in Arabic note the three different words denoting state law, tribal custom and religious law used in the sentence.)

The rest of the article is quite fascinating as well.