Political Security guards also tried to stop those assembled from congregating in front of the headquarters in the political district behind al-Sitteen street in the capital, Sana'a, yet the families' resolve prevented that. Tomorrow (Wednesday) political security officials will set a date to allow the participants of the assembly to meet with the chief of the Political Security forces, Major General Ghalib al-Qamish, and to present to a letter demanding the release of their sons who have been arbitrarily arrested and number more than 45 detainees, some of whom have been there three years without being tried or being represented in front of a judicial authority.

We call attention to the presence among this group of 14 detainees that had been arrested in Syria and then handed over to the Yemeni authorities, who placed them in custody. Alkarama submitted their cases to the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on 19 November 2008.

Many relatives of these detainees travelled from Hadramout to Sana'a for the meeting with the head of political security in order to submit to him their cases, having lost hope of influencing local authorities in their governorate after a string of sit-ins held in front of the headquarters of these authorities failed to bring any result.

In a letter received by Alkarama for Human Rights the families of the detainees called for justice for their sons as a model for the rest of the governorates, convinced that they had been detained pending security cases that had no grounds in truth, as they were never turned over to any court considering their case.

The families of the detainees in the political security prison said that numerous afflictions beset their relatives in the course of their imprisonment including disruption of study, isolation from their families, children and spouses, and the growing of hatred in the spirits of the young men and their families because of this injustice which befell them, not to mention the deterioration in their mental and physical health resulting from the poor nourishment and conditions of detention.

The families of the detainees put out a call to "The Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Salih, to be the father of all Yemenis" in accordance with their letter, and to "The officials in the Political Security forces and their chief Major General Ghalib al-Qamish, and the human rights organisations and all those concerned, and those with a humane conscience; to all of these people to strive for the release of these families' mistreated sons," in accordance with the letter.

The families addressed the chief of the Political Security forces saying, "He has set free many of the detainees in other governorates, while our sons still languish in prison without trial...What is the reason for this distinction," they wonder "which perhaps gives rise to hatred between the sons of the southern and northern governorates." They added: "With our utmost wishes to consolidate the ties of our blessed unity and to eliminate all that begets rancour."

We point out that some guards of the headquarters of the Political Security forces dealt with assembly participants from among the families of detainees in a very bad manner. Similarly, one passer-by of Arab decent was detained trying to take a photo of the gathering with his mobile phone, and his fate is still unknown.