‘Ali ‘Abdul-Fattah Hashim is a 40-year-old writer and teacher currently held in Sana’a Central Prison on a charge of apostasy, which carries a sentence of death in Yemen. AI has adopted him as a prisoner of conscience and is calling for his immediate release. He has been diagnosed as suffering from “depressive illness with paranoid ideas” and was hospitalized for four weeks in May-June 1991 and medically examined again in August 1992. He has been arrested for political reasons on previous occasions and allegedly tortured. His most recent arrest, in April 1992, came after a private law suit was brought against him. He lost his teaching job in January 1992, after an attack on his religious beliefs, led by an Islamic newspaper. He is reportedly held in poor conditions in Sana’a Prison.
