Ministry of Civil Service declares Sunday a holiday for the 64th anniversary of the September 26 Revolution
Yemen Herald News 
ADEN, Yemen — Yemen’s Ministry of Civil Service and Insurance declared Sunday an official holiday for state employees to mark the 64th anniversary of the September 26 Revolution.
The holiday covers staff in central and local government authorities, the ministry said.
It set out the decision in a circular obtained by the state news agency Saba, which published the text on Wednesday.
The ministry cited Article 3 of Law No. 2 of 2000 on official holidays and public breaks as the legal basis.
September 26 falls this year on the weekly day of rest, the ministry said. It therefore granted Sunday, September 27, as a compensatory day.
That step rests on Cabinet Resolution No. 247 of 2000, which governs what happens when an official holiday lands on a rest day.
Official working hours resume on Monday, September 28, according to the circular.
State offices will therefore work four days that week, from Monday to Thursday.
Yemen Herald could not independently confirm the announcement. The account rests on the Ministry of Civil Service and Insurance, through the circular carried by Saba, and no independent confirmation has been published.
The ministry sits within the internationally recognised government, which is seated in Aden.
Aden has served as the government’s temporary capital since 2015, after the Houthis advanced into the south.
The Presidential Leadership Council has headed the government since April 2022.
Yemen’s working week runs from Sunday to Thursday. Friday and Saturday are the weekly rest days.
The country moved to that pattern in 2013, switching from a Thursday and Friday weekend.
September 26 falls on a Saturday this year. Without the compensatory measure, state employees would have drawn no day off from the anniversary.
The 2000 law lists five holidays on the Gregorian calendar.
They are Labour Day on May 1, Unity Day on May 22, Revolution Day on September 26, Liberation Day on October 14 and Independence Day on November 30.
Four further holidays follow the Islamic calendar and move through the year.
They are Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha, the Islamic new year and the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad.
The anniversary marks the events of September 26, 1962.
Imam Ahmad bin Yahya had died on September 19 that year. His son, Muhammad al-Badr, was proclaimed imam and king in his place.
Al-Badr held the throne for about a week.
Officers shelled his residence in the Bir al-Azab district of Sanaa on September 26. Abdullah al-Sallal, whom al-Badr had appointed commander of the royal guard, led the move and declared a republic.
Al-Sallal became the first president of the Yemen Arab Republic.
Al-Badr fled to the northern mountains and raised Zaydi tribes against the new government.
The fighting that followed ran until 1970. Egypt sent troops in support of the republicans. Saudi Arabia backed the royalists.
Egypt withdrew its forces at the end of 1967, after Cairo and Riyadh signed an agreement in Khartoum that August.
Royalist forces besieged Sanaa from November 1967 to February 1968 and failed to take the city.
Saudi Arabia recognised the republic in 1970 and a ceasefire followed.
The Yemen Arab Republic lasted until 1990, when it merged with the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen. That union is the event marked by Unity Day on May 22.
Two of Yemen’s other national days fall within weeks of the September anniversary.
October 14 marks the start of the 1963 revolt against British rule in the south. November 30 marks the British withdrawal from Aden in 1967.
The dates gave the two Yemens separate republican foundation stories before they united.
The September date also names 26 September, a newspaper published by the Yemeni armed forces.
Marking September 26 has become contested since the current war began.
The Houthis took control of Sanaa in September 2014. The group treats September 21, the date of that takeover, as the anniversary that matters.
It has argued that the date should stand in place of September 26.
Rights organisations have documented arrests of people who marked the republican date in areas the group controls.
Amnesty International reported a wave of detentions after demonstrations in September 2023. Human Rights Watch reported a further round of arbitrary arrests in October 2024.
Mwatana for Human Rights, a Yemeni organisation, documented what it called a campaign of suppression around the anniversary. It said those detained included children who had joined street gatherings.
The Houthis reject the rights groups’ accounts of how they handle the anniversary.
In government-held areas the date is observed publicly. Saba reported on Wednesday that a meeting chaired by the governor of Taiz approved arrangements for marking the national days.
The circular does not cover the private sector. It addresses state employees in central and local authorities.
It does not apply in areas outside the Aden government’s control, where Houthi-run institutions set their own calendar.
The ministry did not say whether essential services would run reduced staffing over the holiday.
It gave no figure for the number of employees affected.
The central bank moved its headquarters from Sanaa to Aden in September 2016. The two administrations have run separate salary systems since.
The circular makes no reference to salaries.
Saba timestamped the item at 12:46 on September 23.
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