Last modified: 2024-09-07 by ian macdonald
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Yemen is a one party dominant state in which the General People's Congress
(GPC) holds power. Opposition parties are allowed and elections are regularly
held.
The main political parties which hold seats in the (unicameral)
House of Representatives (Majlis al-Nuwaab) (official website:
http://yemenparliament.gov.ye) until
February 2015 prior to being dissolved by the Houthis are:
image by Esteban Rivera, 27 November 2023
based on photo
The larger slogan right above the rifle reads: "Ansar Allah" ("Supporters of
Allah"), a slogan that is affiliated with the Shia-Muslim, Yemen "Houthi
Movement", but also used by other Middel East militias. This logo is that of the
Yemen "Houthi Movement." The flag's design mimics the logo of Hezbollah. There
is a flag-pole sleeve at the right (hoist) in this image.
William
Garrison, 2
November 2023
image by Esteban Rivera, 27 November 2023
Logo source:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ansar_Allah_Logo.svg
William
Garrison, 2
November 2023
The Houthi movement (Arabic: ٱلْحُوثِيُّون , al-Ḥūthīyūn), officially called
Ansar Allah (Arabic: أَنْصَار ٱللَّٰه "Supporters of
God") and colloquially
simply as Houthis, is an Islamic political party (which also has an armed wing,
known as الحوثيين الزيدية المسلحة (English: Armed Zaydi Houthis) that
emerged from Sa'dah in northern Yemen in 1994 (other sources mention 1992).
It traces its roots back to a moderate theological movement that preached
tolerance and held a broad-minded view of all the Yemeni peoples, as a
consequence that its members felt marginalized and discriminated by the
Hashemites and the Yemeni government at that time. This theological movement,
of Zaidi influence was known as الشباب المؤمن (English: "The Believing Youth"
(BY)), established in 1992 in Sa'dah Governorate. Ansar or Ansari (singular)
(Arabic: الأنصار al-Anṣār, "The Helpers") were the local inhabitants of
Medina who, in Islamic tradition, took the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his
followers (the Muhajirun) into their homes when they emigrated from Mecca
during the hijra. The movement is commonly known as Houthi movement or simply
Houthis because its founder is from the Houthi tribe.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houthi_movement,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slogan_of_the_Houthi_movement and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansar_(Islam)
image by
Esteban Rivera, 30 July 2020
based on
http://www.thetower.org
The Houthis flag is their
logo (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Houthis_Logo.png)
on a vertical rectangular white background banner, as seen here:
http://www.yemenfox.net/userimages/mag/1/210/777/u82.jpg (source:
http://www.yemenfox.net/news_details.php?sid=22966). The logo reads: "Houthi
logo reading "God is Great, Death to (United States of) America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to
Islam".
For additional information go to Ansar (o) Allah (official website): http://ansaroallah.com
Esteban Rivera, 30 July 2020
image located by William Garrison, 25 July 2024
A diagonal-flag variety of the "Ansar Allah" ("Houthi movement") as seen at a
Houthi office in Baghdad, Iraq; c. 24 July 2024.
William Garrison,
25 July 2024
image located by William Garrison, 3 April 2023
From
https://www.thetimes.co.uk, a Houthi political/militia flag; male-portait
may be that of its leader: Abdul-Malik Badreddin al-Houthi; c. Nov. 2021.
William Garrison, 3 April 2023
image located by William Garrison, 21 August 2024
From
https://www.memri.org, supposedly a white-field "Ansar Allah" movement flag;
c. spring 2023.
Original caption: Children holding Houthi flags during a
recent camp program (Source: Saba' News Agency, April 28, 2023)
William Garrison,
16 June 2023
image located by William Garrison, 21 August 2024
A flag of the "Ansar Allah" youth organization with at the top its motto
(reading right-to-left): "aleim wal jihad" or translated into English as:
"Knowledge and Jihad". [jihad = جِهَاد ] This Shiite-Muslim "Houthi" movement in
Yemen, since the 1990s, has held yearly summer camps for school-age boys and
girls. The Houthi leadership ascribes great significance to these summer camps
as a means of instilling its religious and political values in the younger
generation, with the goal of ultimately recruiting them to fight against its
Arab and Western enemies. Flag seen in Sanna, the capital of Yemen, on June 9,
2024 (Image: Saba.ye/en) Motto source showing multiple sizes and uses of this
flag is at:
https://www.memri.org/reports/houthi-summer-camps-children-teach-jihad-sake-allah-hatred-west
William Garrison, 21 August 2024
image by Tomislav Todorovic, 30 July 2020
General People's Congress (المؤتمر الشعبي العام), GPC, was established on August 24, 1982 in Sana'a,
North Yemen, becoming an umbrella
organisation that sought to represent all political interests, that is:
Baathists, Socialists, and members of Islam (up until some point). It became
the majority party and won all elections until the 2011 Houthi insurgency
started.
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_People%27s_Congress_(Yemen)
The
flag is a light blue horizontal background with the party's emblem (a horse
in brown color) in the middle.
Image based on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_People%27s_Congress_(Yemen)#/media/File:General_People's_Congress_flag.svg
, source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_People%27s_Congress_(Yemen)
As a rule, the horse is fimbriated white, although there are a few
exceptions. The shade of brown also varies somewhat; most frequently, the
horse looks as the reproduction taken from a photo. The hooves may sometimes
be white, merged with the fimbriation, which is also an exception to the
rule.
Sources:
image by Tomislav Todorovic, 4 June 2017
From a story from last year about separatists in Yemen's Taiz province:
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/republic-taiz-yemen-resistance-1769604821
The proposed flag of Al Janad, a region that would include Taiz and Ibb
provinces, is a horizontal tricolour of red, sky blue, and yellow.
More
photos here:
http://www.sahafah24.net/show65818.html
http://voice-yemen.com/news87700.html
https://twitter.com/arabianofelix/status/642329993075363840
Brendan Hennessy, 2 June 2017
About 2015 in Janab (Taizz, Ibb) was attested a flag of black, white, green
horizontal stripes (photos in Flag Report 79).
Jaume Ollé, 2 June 2017
image by Tomislav Todorovic, 4 June 2017
The Yemeni Congregation for Reform, frequently called al-Islah (التجمع اليمني
للإصلاح , at-Tajammu’u al-Yamanī lil-Iṣlāḥ), is a Yemeni Islamist party
founded on September 13, 1990. It is more of a loose coalition of tribal and
religious elements than a political party. Its origins are in the Islamic Front,
a Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated militia funded by Saudi Arabia to combat the
Marxist National Democratic Front. The Islamic Front regrouped after the
unification of Yemen in 1990 under the banner of the Islah Party with
considerable financial backing from Saudi Arabia
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Islah_(Yemen)
Its flag(?) is seen
here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Logo_of_the_Yemeni_Congregation_for_Reform_(al-Islah).svg
For additional information go to al-Islah (official website):
http://www.al-islah.net
Esteban
Rivera,, 3 June 2017
The image is presented as the "party flag" on the Wikipedia page dedicated to
the party. However, the individual image is clearly labelled and captioned
"party logo". Accordingly, there is a need for more solid evidence that the logo
is actually used on a flag.
A blue flag with the party seal is featured
on a photo without any caption. I have some doubt regarding the authenticity of
the photo after zooming it - the seal seems to have been applied on the photo of
a blue flag.
Ivan Sache, 4 June 2017
The party does use this flag. Photos of it can be found here:
http://www.eremnews.com/news/arab-world/yemen/565140
http://yemen-press.com/news41476.html
http://www.hunaaden.com/news3578.html
http://yemen-press.com/news33310.html
http://adengd.net/news/220299/
https://arabi21.com/story/1004334
The size of rising sun seems to
vary somewhat, and the party name may be inscribed beneath it, although this
seems to be done rarely - only one of these examples seems to display it. The
shade of blue seems to be very close to FOTW color B-, perhaps just a bit more
"greenish", and the ratio is 2:3 or very close.
Image above of described
flag; derived from the SVG image of the logo from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Logo_of_the_Yemeni_Congregation_for_Reform_(al-Islah).svg
As can be seen, Wikipedia is not completely wrong when displaying that
image as the flag, although the ratio does differ.
Tomislav Todorovic,
4 June 2017
image by Randy Young, 20 February 2015