The Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights activist, Tawakkol Karman, strongly slammed the Houthi putschists for imposing the so-called "Zakat tax," according to which one-fifth of public revenues goes to families who claim descent from the Prophet Muhammad, including the Houthis themselves.

In a post on her official Facebook page, Tawakkol Karman pointed out that the Houthi militia “insists on presenting themselves to our people as a dynastic militia, whose destructive project is to subdue and enslave Yemenis and seize their private and public property for the benefit of their own dynasty”. 

Addressing the Houthi militia, Karman said that the Yemeni people will not accept their project based on racism and the rejection of the other, and that this project is doomed to fail just like other small projects such as the Saudi-Emirati hegemony and tutelage over Yemen.