Did Saleh violate international law?
In addition to antigovernment protesters, foreign diplomats no longer seem to be safe from pro-regime "demonstrators" in the Yemeni capital: Yemen‘s political crisis took a dramatic turn yesterday when armed loyalists of embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh surrounded an embassy, trapping the American and other ambassadors inside for hours until they apparently were flown out ...
In addition to antigovernment protesters, foreign diplomats no longer seem to be safe from pro-regime "demonstrators" in the Yemeni capital:
In addition to antigovernment protesters, foreign diplomats no longer seem to be safe from pro-regime "demonstrators" in the Yemeni capital:
Yemen‘s political crisis took a dramatic turn yesterday when armed loyalists of embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh surrounded an embassy, trapping the American and other ambassadors inside for hours until they apparently were flown out by Yemeni military helicopter.[…]
Saleh supporters massed outside the Emirati embassy, blocking two main entrances and at one point attacking a convoy bringing the GCC’s top mediator, Abdullatif bin Rashid al-Zayani, to the compound, news agencies reported. Mobs surrounded other foreign embassies; the Chinese ambassador’s convoy also came under attack, according to news reports.
"Everybody is worried. We can’t leave the embassy," an unnamed Saudi diplomat told the Associated Press before the apparent helicopter rescue.
Saleh’s government will deny that it orchestrated the protests, but taking a look at the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which Yemen signed in 1986, it still appears that Yemen may be in violation:
1.The premises of the mission shall be inviolable. The agents of the receiving State may not enter them, except with the consent of the head of the mission.
2.The receiving State is under a special duty to take all appropriate steps to protect the premises of the mission against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any disturbance of the peace of the mission or impairment of its dignity.
3.The premises of the mission, their furnishings and other property thereon and the means of transport of the mission shall be immune from search, requisition, attachment or execution.
Even if the Yemeni government didn’t specifically order the seige of the Emirati embassy, it would be hard to argue that it took all appropriate steps to "prevent any disturbance of the peace of the mission or impairment of its dignity" when it was Saleh’s own armed supporters who were doing the disturbing.
Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating
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