Forty days after his death, family and friends have commemorated last Sunday Amjad Abdulrahman, 21, a vocal political activist from Aden.
“My son is the martyr of freedom and enlightenment,” said Mohammed Abdulrahman, the father of Amjad.
An anonymous armed man shot activist Amjad in the head while he was in an internet cafe in Aden’s Sheikh Othman district, killing him instantly.
Close friends of Abdulrahman said he was accused by extremist groups in Aden of atheism because of his liberal views on human rights, deemed by them as prohibited.
“Aden is not familiar with killing people for their opinions, this is a first and unfortunately it is carried out with the excuse of religion,” says Sahl Bin Eshaq, a professor and one of the participants in the commemoration.
After his assassination, armed men in a military vehicle affiliated with the commander of a security camp called Liwaa 20, UAE-backed forces, blocked the road in front of Abdulrahamn’s funeral procession and prevented his burial, under the pretext that he was an infidel who should not be buried in a Muslim graveyard.
“The bullet that landed on the head of Amjad was aimed to kill the idea, kill civil society, kill the voice of freedom,” said Ahmed al-Waffi, an activist.
This was not the first incident where activists have been killed by extremists. Two other young activists were killed after they were accused of being infidels. Some activists believe these accusations were manipulated to oppress political opponents in the south.
Commemoration Held for Activist Killed in Aden By Extremist Group
