SANAA, 24 March 2004 — Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said yesterday that sanctions should be imposed on Israel and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon tried for war crimes after assassinating Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.
“We demand that the international community, especially the United Nations, impose sanctions on the Zionist entity and try Sharon, the world’s foremost terrorist, for war crimes,” Saleh told thousands of demonstrators in central Sanaa.
“Yassin’s assassination is a flagrant defiance of the Arab nation. It is the result of the absence of Arab solidarity,” added Saleh, warning of “a repeat of Yassin’s assassination with that of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.”
Demonstrations against Yassin’s killing continued yesterday for a second day across Yemen involving tens of thousands of people.
In Sanaa, protesters handed the UN representative a message demanding “urgent intervention by the internationl organization to put an end to the butchery by the Zionist entity against the Palestinian people, and the trial of Sharon for war crimes.”
Some demonstrators chanted slogans calling for a boycott of American products and burnt the US flag.
On Monday, thousands of students turned out on a Sanaa University campus to denounce Yassin’s assassination while calling for jihad, or Muslim holy war.
