Saudi-led strike 'kills dozens' of Yemen rebels
AFP / Mohammed HUWAISYemeni rebel supporters attend the funeral of slain Huthi political chief Saleh al-Sammad in Sanaa on April 28, 2018
A Saudi-led coalition air strike has killed dozens of Yemeni rebels including two commanders, state media said Saturday, in another blow to the insurgents following the assassination of their political chief.
The Huthi rebels staged a public funeral on Saturday for Saleh al-Sammad, head of their Supreme Political Council and effectively the insurgents' second-in-command, who was killed last week in an air raid claimed by Saudi Arabia and its allies.
His funeral came hours after Saudi Arabia's state-run Al-Ekhbariya television said two high-ranking insurgents were among more than 50 Huthis killed in a new strike overnight in the capital Sanaa.
In a speech eulogising Sammad on Saturday night, rebel chief Abdul Malik al-Huthi claimed Saudi Arabia and its allies had targeted the outskirts of Sabaeen Square as Huthi supporters gathered for Sammad's funeral.
The rebels' Al-Masirah television aired footage of black columns of smoke billowing outside the square, where Yemenis chanted slogans calling for the demise of Saudi Arabia and the United States. The date of the footage could not be immediately verified.
The rebels have been locked in a war since 2015 with a Saudi-led military alliance fighting to restore the internationally recognised Yemeni government to power.
AFP / Mohammed HUWAISA truck carries the coffin of the Yemeni Huthi rebels' political chief Saleh al-Sammad during his funeral in Sanaa on April 28, 2018
Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya television said the overnight strike had targeted the interior ministry in Sanaa, which is controlled by the rebels.
The Huthis, backed by Saudi Arabia's regional arch-rival Iran, confirmed the air strike on Sanaa but gave no details.
The Huthi leader slammed Saudi Arabia and its allies, primarily the United Arab Emirates, for operating "under the umbrella" of the United States and Israel, saying Sammad's death was "added incentive" for the rebels.
The Huthis, who hail from northern Yemen, control Sanaa and much of the country's north -- which borders Saudi Arabia -- and the key Hodeida port on the Red Sea coast.
- Huthi missiles -
Shortly after Sammad's funeral began, the Huthis said they had launched eight ballistic missiles into the Sunni kingdom.
The coalition confirmed it had intercepted four missiles headed for the southern Saudi coastal city of Jizan, one day after the kingdom's defence forces said they had downed a missile headed for the same area.
While the coalition statement said the attack claimed no casualties, Jizan's civil defence spokesman Colonel Yahya Abdullah al-Qahtani told Al-Arabiya that a Saudi Arabian citizen had been killed by falling shrapnel.
A coalition spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation.
The rebels have ramped up their missile attacks on Saudi Arabia this year. One person was reported killed by falling shrapnel in Riyadh last month.
Saturday's attacks came just ahead of the arrival of newly appointed US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who touched down in Riyadh for meetings set to including talks on the Yemen conflict.
Riyadh and its close ally Washington accuse Iran of arming the Huthis, which Iran denies.
Tehran blames Saudi Arabia for the devastating Yemen war, which has left millions struggling to secure food.
AFP/File / MOHAMMED HUWAISThe political head of Yemen's Huthi Shiite rebels, Saleh al-Sammad, attends a meeting with freed prisoners in Sanaa on January 31, 2017
In Sanaa, Huthi supporters lined the streets Saturday for the funeral of Sammad and six others killed in the April 19 strike.
Rebels dressed in military fatigues marched ahead of his hearse, which included seven cars draped in the Yemeni flag and accompanied by a marching band.
Nearly 10,000 people have been killed since the Saudi-led alliance joined the Yemen conflict, triggering what the United Nations has called the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
Yemen now stands on the brink of famine.
The Saudi-led coalition imposed a total blockade on Yemen's ports in November in retaliation for cross-border Huthi missile attacks on Saudi Arabia.
The blockade has since been partially lifted, but access to the impoverished country remains limited.
Tens of thousands protest in Spain over gang rape acquittal
AFP / XABIER LERTXUNDIPolice said tens of thousands gathered in Pamplona to protest on Saturday
Tens of thousands of Spaniards took to the streets of Pamplona on Saturday to protest against the acquittal of five men accused of gang raping an 18-year-old woman at the city's bull-running festival.
Demonstrators have filled streets across the country since the court ruling on Thursday, leading Spain's conservative government to say it will consider changing rape laws.
The men were acquitted of sexual assault, which includes rape, and sentenced to nine years for the lesser offence of sexual abuse.
In Pamplona itself, police said that "between 32,000 and 35,000 people" took part in a demonstration on Saturday, rallying under the slogan "it's not sexual abuse, it's rape".
Thousands of women marched together with their hands raised at the protest, which police said passed off peacefully.
Ana Botin, the influential head of Santander, one of Spain's biggest banks, tweeted that the ruling was "a step back for women's security" while former judge Manuela Carmena, now Madrid mayor, said it "does not meet women's demand for justice."
The men, aged 27 to 29, had been accused of raping the woman at the entrance to an apartment building in Pamplona on July 7, 2016, at the start of the week-long San Fermin festival, which draws tens of thousands of visitors.
The five, all from the southern city of Seville, filmed the incident with their smartphones and then bragged about it on a WhatsApp messaging group where they referred to themselves as "La Manada", or "The Pack" in English.
- Online petition -
AFP / XABIER LERTXUNDIProtests have spread across Spain, with calls to change the law on rape convictions
An online petition calling for the disqualification of the judges who passed the sentence gathered more than 1.2 million signatures by Saturday.
The issue also hogged the headlines of newspapers all around the country and an order of Carmelite nuns added their voices to the wave of condemnation of the court judgement.
Under Spain's criminal code, evidence of violence or intimidation must exist for the offence of rape to be proved.
But that was a legal nuance that was "not always easy to establish," top-selling daily El Pais wrote in an editorial.
It "leads to the painful question of just how much a person needs to fight to avoid being raped without risking getting killed, and still get recognised as a victim of a serious attack against sexual freedom while ensuring that the perpetrators do not enjoy impunity," the newspaper said.
In their ruling, the judges said that "it is indisputable that the plaintiff suddenly found herself in a narrow and hidden place, surrounded by five older, thick-bodied males who left her overwhelmed and unresponsive.
"The videos show the plaintiff surrounded and stuck against the wall by two of the accused... she has an absent grimace, and keeps her eyes closed," they added.
- 'Macho culture' -
AFP / GABRIEL BOUYSSpain's rape laws were thrust into the spotlight after a court acquitted five men of sexual assault
Already on Thursday, large crowds of mainly women had marched in cities across Spain, including Madrid and Barcelona, following the court sentencing. In the northern city of Santander protesters blocked roads, public television TVE reported.
Then on Friday, thousands of people demonstrated outside the Pamplona court where the judgement was made.
And a community of 16 Carmelite nuns in the Hondarribia monastery in the Basque country condemned the court ruling on Facebook.
"We live cloistered away, wearing a habit that reaches down to our ankles, we don't go out in the evening, we don't go to parties, we don't drink alcohol and we've undertaken a vow of chastity," the nuns said.
"And because that's our free choice, we will defend with all the means at our disposal... the right of all woman to FREELY do the opposite, without them being judged, raped, threatened, killed or humiliated," they wrote.
AFP / GABRIEL BOUYSLarge crowds of mainly women marched in cities across Spain
State prosecutors said they would appeal the ruling.
Adriana Lastra, a top official with Spain's main opposition Socialist party, said the court ruling was "disgraceful".
"It's the product of a patriarchal and macho culture," she added.
The case was cited in signs carried by many women during massive demonstrations held in cities across Spain to mark International Women's Day in March, which were among the largest in Europe.
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