On the sixty-third anniversary of the Revolution of the 26th of September 1962, the streets of Sana’a and other governorates under Houthi control transformed from spaces of celebration into arenas of persecution. The republican flag no longer fluttered in public squares but became a mark of guilt. The national anthem was no longer sung in schools; it had turned into an act of defiance punishable by retribution. The scene encapsulates a struggle that runs deeper than politics; it is a battle for control over collective memory itself.

What occurred in September 2025 was not a passing episode of security repression, but rather a new chapter in a systematic project aimed at reshaping Yemen’s collective consciousness. After years of consolidating its military grip, the Houthi movement has shifted toward a far more perilous objective: the domination of national memory and the reconfiguration of Yemeni identity to align with a sectarian ideology that revives the logic of the Imamate through the instruments of the twenty-first century.

This paper seeks to examine the recent wave of arrests and violations within their symbolic, political, and social contexts, viewing them as part of a broader project to reconstruct the national identity and replace it with a closed sectarian one. It also aims to analyse the alarming figures that accompanied these events and assess their impact on Yemen’s collective national memory.

Figures of Repression and Indicators of Fear

Human rights reports indicate that in September 2025 alone, more than 1,063 arrests were recorded in areas under Houthi control — including 613 cases across Sana’a, the Capital Secretariat, Hajjah, Amran, Dhamar, Ibb, Saada, Al Mahwit, and Al Hodeidah. Local human rights networks also documented 123 home raids targeting citizens for their intention to commemorate the anniversary of the revolution.(1)  In one striking incident, children as young as five were detained in Amran after lighting the symbolic flame of the revolution.

Irada Organization Against Torture and Enforced Disappearance submitted a detailed report to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, revealing 1,969 cases of enforced disappearance within Houthi detention centres, including 203 cases involving women.(2) These figures illustrate a systematic pattern that extends beyond specific occasions, constituting an enduring policy aimed at stifling any republican voice. Amnesty International also confirmed the arrest of prominent detainees’ lawyer Abdul Majid Sabra on 25 September, following social media posts commemorating the revolution’s anniversary. His whereabouts remain undisclosed to date.(3)

Repression was not confined to the public sphere. The group imposed stringent restrictions on women, including bans on travel without a male guardian, limitations on access to employment and education, and violations of privacy through raids and intrusive inspections, an effort aimed at pushing Yemeni women decades backwards.

The Zainabiyat — the Houthi-affiliated female security unit — has evolved into a mechanism of surveillance over private life. Body searches of women, the inspection and confiscation of mobile phones, and interference in dress and social behaviour all signal that the Houthi project seeks more than political domination. It aspires to reshape the entire social fabric according to a rigid sectarian vision that perceives women as a threat to be controlled.

This repression of women is not separate from the broader campaign to suppress national memory. Both are designed to dismantle the republican identity founded upon the principles of equality and citizenship, replacing it with a discriminatory order built on absolute loyalty to the group and a rigid social and religious hierarchy.

Erasing Memory and Replacing Identity

The Houthi project extends beyond overt repression, such as banning celebrations, confiscating flags, and arresting those who participate in national commemorations. It encompasses a deeper endeavour to reengineer collective consciousness in service of its sectarian ideology. The group seeks to erase Yemen’s republican identity and replace it with a sectarian, exclusionary identity founded on allegiance to Houthi leadership.

The group has sought to replace national symbols with its own slogans, most notably al-Sarkha (the cry), in place of those of the Revolution of the 26th of September 1962. National holidays are being supplanted by sectarian commemorations such as the Prophet’s Birthday (Mawlid al-Nabi) and “Martyrs’ Day.” Schools are compelled to recite chants glorifying the movement, mosques have been turned into platforms for propagating the doctrine of Wilayah (guardianship), and school curricula are being rewritten to entrench the Houthis’ narrative of history and society.

This transformation extends beyond discourse; it constitutes a systematic process of reprogramming public consciousness. Its purpose is to sever new generations from their republican roots and indoctrinate them with values of obedience and hierarchical loyalty, rendering concepts such as equal citizenship and freedom alien to their collective awareness.

The Houthi movement recognises that the Revolution of the 26th of September 1962 is not merely a historical occasion but the foundational symbol of Yemen’s modern identity, marking the end of Imamate rule and the launch of the republican state project. Its apprehension toward any revival of this anniversary stems from the fact that it represents the direct antithesis of its ideological and political existence. Hence, the repressive measures are not isolated acts of control but instruments designed to drain the national memory of its emancipatory essence and sever the symbolic chain that links Yemenis to their legacy of resistance.

This project goes beyond the erasure of history to encompass an attempt to reshape social behaviour itself. Practices such as the body searches of women and the confiscation of mobile phones by the Zainabiyat reflect a desire to subject both the body and private space to a logic of surveillance and control. In this way, political obedience is transformed into social and psychological submission, and subjugation is reproduced within the minutiae of daily life — until allegiance to the group replaces loyalty to the nation.

From Fear to Total Control

When a child is arrested for lighting a torch, when homes are raided merely on suspicion of intending to celebrate, and when a lawyer is forcibly disappeared over a Facebook post, the message conveyed to society is unmistakable: even the act of thinking is perilous.

These practices generate a state of chronic fear that permeates the fabric of daily life. People refrain from speaking in public areas, delete their social media posts, and avoid any action that might be construed as dissent. Self-censorship thus becomes more powerful than official surveillance.

When such repression coincides with a suffocating humanitarian crisis, hunger, disease, and the collapse of essential services, citizens find themselves trapped between two forms of subjugation: economic and security-driven. The hungry, ailing, and fearful individual loses the capacity for resistance and becomes increasingly susceptible to submission.

This is not a transient security policy but a comprehensive form of social engineering aimed at producing a society stripped of will, one confined within an imposed identity that it lacks the power to transcend or even to question.

The conflict in Yemen has moved beyond military frontlines and geopolitical boundaries. It has become a struggle over meaning, identity, and memory. Who holds the right to define what it means to be Yemeni? Who determines the nation’s symbols, values, and historical references?

The Houthi movement seeks to impose a singular answer: Yemen is what the group defines it to be. Yemeni identity must conform to allegiance to its sectarian leadership. History is to be interpreted through the lens of its ideology, and the future is shaped according to its own vision.

This entails the eradication of the cultural and political pluralism that has long defined Yemen, replacing it with an enforced singularity that seeks to erase all difference and diversity. It is an attempt to occupy consciousness before territory, and to dismantle the national spirit before dismantling the institutions of state and society.

Conclusion: Memory Does Not Die

The wave of arrests and violations that accompanied the anniversary of the Revolution of the 26th of September 1962 was not a transient episode, but the culmination of a long trajectory through which the Houthi movement seeks to monopolise history and redefine Yemen according to its own vision. The group understands that control over memory constitutes the deepest form of domination, that erasing symbols is far more perilous than destroying bridges.

Yet history teaches that national memory does not perish under repression. Revolutions are never erased from the chronicles of nations; they are reborn, renewed, when darkness deepens. Every flag raised quietly upon a rooftop, every torch lit in secret across a valley, a plain, or a mountain, every poem or post recalling September — all constitute symbolic acts of resistance against the project of erasure and domination.

Defending the Revolution of the 26th of September 1962 nowadays is not merely a national duty or an act of loyalty to a historical occasion; it is a battle of consciousness and dignity; indeed, a battle for existence itself. It is a struggle to affirm the Yemenis’ right to define their own identity, to preserve their collective memory, and to shape their own future. It is a fight to ensure that future generations know their forebears once rejected tyranny and launched an inclusive national project founded upon dignity and equality — and such projects do not die.