Qatar Charity financing Houthi project in Yemen

Noura Bendari

Organizations acting on Qatar’s orders are once more trying to destabilize Yemen, especially by offering backing the Iran-aligned Houthi militia.

On October 11, Qatar Charity said announced a bid for the printing of textbooks for Yemeni schools. Called ‘Project for the Support of the Children of Yemen’, the project includes fundamental changes introduce by the Houthis to the school curricula to make this curricula more Shiite-based.

The new Qatari bid solves a major problem for the Houthi Ministry of Education, which is headed by Yahia al-Houthi, a brother of Houthi leader Abdel Malak al-Houthi, namely of making the budget needed for the printing of the textbooks for the new academic year available.

The new curricula contain basic changes that go hand in hand with the Shiite faith. They are mainly focus on Islamic and national upbringing.

In a statement, the legitimate Yemeni government denounced on October 11 the new move by Qatar Charity.

It said the new curricula would but mess with the faith and national doctrine of Yemeni pupils.

“The new curricula open the door for religious and social extremism,” the government said in its statement.

Unending support

This is not the first time Qatar Charity offers support to the Houthi militia. In 2018, the charity offered $60,000 to a Houthi-affiliated organization, according to a leaked document. The organization should ostensibly have distributed this money to the families of Houthi victims in the ongoing war in Yemen.

Nevertheless, the same money was distributed to Houthi leaders, according to the document.

It said Qatar Charity Chairman Mohamed al-Waei met several Houthi leaders and pledged continual support to their organization.

Colonial project

Islamist affairs specialist Hesham al-Naggar said the Qatari support to the Houthi school curricula comes to introduce a new project that runs counter to the Arab and moderate Islamic project.

“The Qataris rally the advocates of this project behind it by tempting them with money,” al-Naggar told The Reference. “Sorry to say, this is a complete colonial project that aims to control the whole of Yemen.”