Sana’a – An incident involving the searching of women’s mobile phones in the Yemeni capital has sparked widespread outrage and condemnation, after a security checkpoint in Hadda’s 14th of October Street stopped a vehicle carrying two female doctors yesterday afternoon. Security personnel reportedly inspected the car, while female police officers searched through the women’s personal phones.

According to the doctors’ father, the officers browsed through photos and messages in what he described as a “provocative and invasive manner,” leaving his daughters traumatized. The young women returned home in tears and refused to go back to their medical practice. He added that the incident made him reconsider staying in Yemen altogether, calling it a “dangerous precedent in a country once proud of not harassing women.”

In a deeply emotional testimony, Reem Al-Khalid another woman who experienced a similar search recounted the terrifying moments she endured:

“Today I learned how fear can shake a person’s heart even when they’ve done nothing wrong. They stopped us on the road and demanded our phones. They flipped through my pictures and messages, and questioned me about my political affiliations in an interrogation that lasted ten minutes but felt like ten years. My body was shaking, my tears were falling, and my heart was racing.”

She continued:

“They told me: ‘Why are you crying? If you’re not guilty, you wouldn’t cry!’ They don’t understand that tears are not weakness… my tears were out of fear, out of the shock of seeing my privacy stripped away so suddenly. My life was laid bare like an open book for no reason.”

Al-Khalid said the experience left her in a state of deep panic, asking:

“Why should an ordinary person walking in the street suddenly be treated like a suspect? Why has safety become such a distant feeling?”

She concluded:

“We stand with our country and with security… but real security is what plants reassurance in people’s hearts, not fear. We dream of a Yemen filled with safety and peace, not anxiety and terror.”

The incident has reignited debate over the conduct of security checkpoints and their impact on personal freedoms in Yemen. Activists have condemned the searching of women’s phones as a blatant violation of privacy and a “dangerous precedent” in the country’s conservative society.