To the great Yemeni people who keep to be stable and patient despite all the pain, suffering and tragedies caused by the ongoing war, and to free Yemenis everywhere,  I salute you with greetings of freedom, dignity, revolution, citizenship and justice.

The seventh anniversary of the glorious revolution of 11 February takes place at a time when Yemen is still struggling to be a free and honorable nation in the face of known and unknown enemies. 

The February Revolution has opened the door of hope for the Yemenis to change the miserable reality made by the overthrown president Saleh so that he could control and rob their wealth and future.

The revolution of February 11 has embodied Yemeni people’s aspirations for emancipation and for being free from the hegemony of certain families and individuals who have taken control of power, state and society, looted the country’s wealth and wasted its resources and capabilities. Ali Abdullah Saleh was obsessed with power and made power confined to his family and his gang. 

Ali Abdullah Saleh sabotaged and weakened the institutions of the state to the extent that we do not have even a responsible institution that could fairly manage resources and plan for the future. We are lacking in an independent and fair judiciary that we can resort to to resolve our differences, and in an army to defend the country in adversity.

 

When the winds of freedom blew across the country on February 11, 2011, the youth of the peaceful revolution broke the dilapidated barrier and brought down the head of corruption, tyranny, and mismanagement. They moved confidently towards the establishment of a state of justice, democracy, and law. But the coup led by ousted president Saleh and the Iranian-backed Houthi militia has plunged the country into conflicts and a devastating war, and opened the door to foreign interference.

 

Oh great people of Yemen, 

Today, threats surrounding our country from all sides keep growing up as a result of the crimes and plots sponsored by the so-called Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Many Yemenis initially did not have any problem with the Arab coalition, which announced its support for the legitimate authority represented by President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to bring down the coup and help the president accomplish the remained part of the transition process in the light of the three references, namely the national dialogue’ outcomes, UN Security Council Resolution on Yemen and Gulf Initiative for the transfer of power. 

But eventually, it has become clear that this coalition is lying and practicing deceit, and was working on implementing its own agenda, which has nothing to do with helping Yemenis or supporting the legitimate authority or with the UN-Security Council resolutions.

This agenda is illegal and aimed at weakening the internationally-recognized authority and preventing its representatives along with leaders of the country's political parties from returning to Yemen’s interim capital and other liberated provinces, controlling ports, airports and islands in the liberated space, which includes about 70% of Yemen. It also includes backing, establishing and arming militias opposed to the president, and building illegal private prisons, as well as indiscriminate shelling, destruction of infrastructure, siege and starvation of the people.

 

To the coalition of UAE and Saudi Arabia,

You have taken the Iranian-backed Houthi militia coup against legitimacy in Sana'a as an excuse to carry out an ugly occupation and have an uglier influence on the great Yemen.

For three years you have been destroying Yemen, and trying to undermine and divide it into fragments. You have been working to keep its south occupied and its north engulfed in chaos and conflicts. To make it easier for you to occupy and control Yemen, you are doing everything in your power to make all parts of the country be a stage in which there is no state 

Your coalition has shifted from supporting to undermining the legitimacy in Yemen. You have turned into an occupier of the country, a destroyer of the national unity and a serious threat to the integrity of its territory!!

It has become crystal clear: each area liberated from the putschists is seen as occupied as long as it does not come under the control of the legitimate authority. The liberation of the occupied territories rests with every Yemeni as a holy national duty preceded by nothing. The great Yemen rejects oppression, injustice and all manifestations of hegemony and occupation. This is our history, which would never be changed.

To President Hadi, his government and leaders of political parties,

It is a shame that Yemeni officials appeal to the UAE to allow them to export gas, or to enter goods through Yemeni ports, for example.

The legitimate authority must respectfully deal with the issues of its people, which suffer from a suffocating siege imposed on their country and lack of services and salaries.

You have to return home and start your work. In order for you to lead the battle and defeat the coup and restore the legitimacy, you have to be in Aden and Marib. Be real leaders! 

I call upon President Hadi and all his cabinet members to return to Yemen and confront the challenges face to face. The President must realize that his presence among his people gives hope and indicates that there is seriousness in dealing with the events and dangers that beset the country.

The only way to build sustainable peace in Yemen begins with ending the coup d'état and the occupation and extending the state control over the entire national territory, from Socotra to Saada. Them, a referendum on the draft constitution should take place under the outcomes of the national dialogue.

O free Yemenis in all the villages, cities, plains, mountains, valleys and coasts of Yemen,

O free Yemenis all over the world,

Our aspirations and goals are very clear. Every human being on this earth has the right to live in freedom and dignity, has the right to equality and justice in own homeland, land and country. We are partners in our homeland. We have laid the blame unjustly on nobody or asked something that is not ours.

We all men, women, youth, employees, politicians, workers, employees, unemployed, partisans, tribes and civilians, coming from all over Yemen, took to the streets, united by the call for freedom and dignity and the aspiration for a state of law, democracy, equality and equal opportunity, and driven by longing to join modern and free societies that peacefully and freely choose and change their rulers through democracy, elections and fair competition without violence, terrorism, corruption and tyranny.

We have not made mistakes,

We have not committed a crime,

We have not carried out any attack, 

Nevertheless, they have met our legitimate peaceful aspirations with murder, violence, treachery and treason. They have met our calls for freedom and justice with arrogance, terrorism, occupation and hegemony.

But they would never be able to break our will and determination. They are fated to leave our country, and Yemen is fated to continue. We will liberate our country from them all; from occupation and domination of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, from the Iranian-backed Houthi coup. We will establish a state of freedom, justice, democracy and law. This is our destiny and promise. 

 

Oh great Yemeni people, 

Throughout history, you have been stronger than adversity and difficulties, and there is no doubt that you are able today to overcome all the challenges that stand in your way.

Keep your faith strong, protect your country, maintain your ability to challenge, keep the spirit of September, October and February alive and keep your Yemeni names and your Yemeni spirit, then you will definitely win.

To the youth of the Arab Spring in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Yemen and Libya, 

The battle is not yet over. It is true that the counterrevolutionary forces and their regional axes have turned our countries into lakes of blood and countless prisons. Yet all this madness is not inevitable. Our peoples will eventually triumph. Freedom is stronger than tyranny in the end.

The fear of the change caused by the Arab Spring is the common denominator of the collapsed regimes and their regional allies. These dictatorships in form of hereditary republics were linked to, supported and nurtured by a regional and global system. Now, the peoples that took to the streets for freedom, dignity, the rule of law, democracy and the peaceful transfer of power are face with war.

All the claims raised by dictatorships and tyrannical and sectarian regimes on development, stability, economy, construction and job creation were only false slogans aimed at distracting peoples from the free will, as evidenced over the past decades.

 

They did not develop or build a real economy, allowed all the factors and causes of the explosion grow up and failed in development and democracy.

The alternative to the Arab Spring is sectarian, religious, separatist, and violent and terrorist groups.

Our sky is covered with dark clouds caused by brute forces that are clinging to the past and the hegemony. But our belonging to the values of humanity, to our age and world and to our aspirations and belief in justice and dignity and freedom and the rule of law embodied in the Arab Spring is much greater than to be scattered by passing clouds.

Glory and pride to the youth of the Arab Spring everywhere!

Glory to the martyrs!

Healing for the wounded!

Freedom for the detainees and the hidden!

Victory for the Arab Spring and its values!