Houthi-run court jails Yemeni model and actress for violating public morality

A court run by Yemen's Houthi authorities has sentenced an actor and model to five years in prison for violating public morality, activists said, after she was detained in a ruling that Amnesty International said was arbitrary and spurious.

Yemeni Entisar Al-Hammadi, in her twenties, was arrested in February at a checkpoint in the capital Sanaa, which is controlled by the Houthis in Yemen, a country embroiled in conflict for more than six years. 

Activists and legal officials told Reuters she was sentenced by a Sanaa court on Sunday.

A judicial source previously told Reuters Hammadi had been charged with carrying out an indecent act and going against Islamic principles.

Amnesty said that Hammadi has appeared in photographs online including in social media posts without a headscarf, defying Yemeni societal norms.

"While detained, she was interrogated while blindfolded, physically and verbally abused, subjected to racist insults and forced to 'confess' to several offences, including drug possession and prostitution," Amnesty said in May.

Houthi-run news outlet Saba on Sunday said Hammadi was also sentenced for using drugs, and said three other women were sentenced alongside her for crimes including debauchery, prostitution, violating public morality and drug-taking.

The Houthi movement, which holds most of northern Yemen, ousted Yemen's internationally recognised government from power in Sanaa in late 2014.