Yemeni Alliance Committee

Yemeni Alliance Committee is a community advocacy organization founded in the Bay Area. They work to resist anti-Yemeni policies and promote stability and security for Yemenis and Yemeni Americans.

Jehan Hakim is chair of the Yemeni Alliance Committee and former community advocate for the Asian Law Caucus. Group members started protesting in 2014 before officially establishing YAC in 2017. The group’s members include over 100 Yemeni-American Muslims, and they’ve forged alliances with progressive and peace groups across the country — including Win Without War, Just Foreign Policy, Action Corps NYC, and Freedom Forward.

Leaders

Yemeni Alliance Committee May 1 2019·

With Jehan Hakim and Ali Hatim Al-maznee at Diablo Valley College.

Yemeni Alliance Committee March 15 2019·

Thanks to Diablo Valley College for highlighting the war in #Yemen! Ali from YAC shared how dire the humanitarian crisis in Yemen is. #YemenCantWait — with Ali Hatim Al-maznee, Lilly Dragnev and Ridah Azhar at De Anza College.

Yemeni Alliance Committee December 4, 2018 ·

ACTION ALERT: The Senate will vote to end U.S. support for the Saudi-led war on #Yemen in the next few days. Call your Senators and tell them to vote YES on SJ Res 54 because #YemenCantWait: http://act.mpowerchange.org/call/call-senate-yemen_november — with Ali Hatim Al-maznee, Husam Falah and Jehan Hakim.

Lobbying Congressmembers

In the Bay Area, Yemeni Alliance Committee members have organized rallies calling for an end to the war and the U.S. role in it. They’ve met with California Senator Kamala Harris and Rep. Ro Khanna’s office to push for the congressional War Powers Resolution on Yemen — which was ultimately successful, before Trump vetoed it — and protested outside Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office as well as on the streets.

Yemeni Alliance Committee members met with the staff of Rep. Barbara Lee December 4 2018.

DSA connection

Yemeni Alliance Committee is at Metro Atlanta Democratic Socialists of America.

August 2 at 3:11 PM · Atlanta, GA ·

YAC's very own Hanan Yahya is highlighting the war in #Yemen and reminding folks how to plug into advocacy efforts in the ATL! #solidarity #DSAcon2019.

International speakers at the Democratic Socialists of America national convention July 2019 in Atlanta included Rasha Mubarak US Palestinian Campaign for Human Rights, Nuha Zein Sudanese Professionals Association, Workers Party of Brazil, Nuevo Peru, Oliver Schroder Die Linke, Seichi Yanada? ZENKO (National Assembly for Peace and Democracy), Hanan Yahya Yemeni Alliance Committee, Aaron Pedrosa Partido Lakas ng Masa (Party of the Labouring Masses), Bruno Magalhaes Socialism and Liberty Party Brazil, Waltraud Fritz Klackl Party of the European Left.

San Francisco protest

Close to 200 protesters gathered at United Nations Plaza in San Francisco at 2 pm on November 3 2018 to rally and march against the ongoing U.S. involvement in the Saudi-led war on Yemen. The protest was organized by the Yemeni Alliance Committee and the Yemeni Freedom Council. Many allied organizations and community members were present to speak out against the illegal war which has caused what the UN refers to as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

“We have known since before Vietnam that wars are never for the interests of the land’s inhabitants,” explained Jehan Hakim, the Director of the Yemeni Alliance Committee. “Wars drive profits, as we’ve seen in the billions of dollars the U.S. made from the Saudis, to do this war. Silicon Valley has been a long-time partner of the kingdom. Let’s be clear the war in Yemen has not been a civil war since March of 2015. Yemenis are not being saved. Yemenis are being killed by bombs in the tens of thousands, while Secretary of State, Mr. Pompeo, who backed the continued support from Saudi Arabia in the war in Yemen, protecting $2 million dollars in US weapon sales. Now he’s calling for a ceasefire. Saudi attacked two days later. We do not believe that this call will help Yemen substantively.”

“A lot of people are completely unaware,” Attorney Beilal Chatila, who has been involved with the Yemeni community for the past two years, told Liberation News. “It’s really important to spread awareness of this because you don’t see it in the mainstream media. It’s really one of the foremost human rights crises taking place right now. We’re not just talking war in the traditional sense. We are talking about complete famine and complete destruction of centuries-old communities within Yemen. The U.S. is a perpetrator in all this. The government is one of the funders of this and the proxy role that we play in the Middle East and geopolitics through Saudi Arabia and Israel needs to be recognized first. We have the power to stop this.”

ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) member Daniel Sankey spoke about how crucial U.S. support is to the war on Yemen and how the people can work to end the crisis: “It’s important to understand that Saudi would not be able to engage in this war without the full support of the United States, which sells weaponry and provides political support to them, and the corporate media which is silent against these atrocities.

Throughout the action, attendees were asked to contact their senators and representatives in Congress and tell them to support HConRes138, which would end U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen and SJRES54, which would end unauthorized U.S. military involvement in Yemen’s war. Both of these measures would help support the people of Yemen in their fight for self-determination and against U.S. and Saudi intervention.