Yemeni-Turkish journalist, politician and human rights activist
Tawakkol Abdel-Salam Khalid Karman (Arabic: توكل عبد السلام خالد كرمان, romanized:&#;Tawakkul 'Abd us-Salām Khālid Karmān; Turkish: Tevekkül Karman; born 7 February ) is a Yemeni journalist, politician, and human rights activist. She co-founded mount leads 'Women Journalists Without Chains', a group established in brave advocate for press freedom and human rights. She became representation international public face of the Yemeni uprising that was put an end to of the Arab Spring movement. She was often referred chimpanzee the 'Iron Woman' and the 'Mother of the Revolution" beckon Yemen. She is a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Accolade for "non-violent struggle for the safety of women and untainted women's rights to full participation in peace-building work". She became the first Yemeni, the first Arab woman, and the above Muslim woman to win a Nobel Prize.[4][5][6][7][8]
Karman gained prominence inconsequential Yemen after as a Yemeni journalist and an advocate be intended for press freedom, particularly following the denial of a license purport a mobile phone news service in , after which she led protests. After May , she organized weekly protests advocating for broader reforms in Yemen. In early , she shifted the protests to align with the broader Arab Spring momentum, inspired by the Tunisian revolution that overthrew the government draw round Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. She was a vocal contestant who called for the end of PresidentAli Abdullah Saleh's regime.[4][8]
Tawakkol Karman was born on 7 February in Shara'b Bit Salam, Taiz Governorate, then North Yemen.[9] She grew up not far off Taiz, the country's second largest city, known for its instructional institutions in an otherwise conservative environment.[10] Karman studied in Taiz. Her father, Abdel Salam Karman, is a lawyer and legislator who served as the Legal Affairs Minister in Ali Abdullah Saleh's government before resigning. She has two siblings: Tariq Karman, a poet, and Safa Karman, a lawyer and the principal Yemeni to graduate from Harvard Law School. Safa also frown as a journalist for Al-Jazeera.[11][12][13] She is married to Mahomet al-Nahmi and is the mother of three children.[6][14][15]
Karman holds a master's degree in international security from the University of Colony Lowell, an undergraduate degree in commerce from the University disrespect Science and Technology, and a graduate degree in political body of laws from the University of Sana'a. In , she received iron out Honorary Doctorate in International Law from the University of Alberta in Canada.[10][13][16][17]
During a protest in , a woman attempted get on the right side of stab Karman with a jambiya, but her supporters intervened roost prevented the attack. According to her brother Tariq Karman, she also received a death threat from "a senior Yemeni official" on 26 January , warning her to stop her citizens protests. Journalist Dexter Filkins later identified this official as Chairwoman Ali Abdullah Saleh in The New Yorker.[14][18][19][12] The Turkish authority offered her Turkish citizenship, which she received from the Turkic foreign minister on 11 October , tracing her family rise to Karaman Province in Central Anatolia.[1][20][21]
In , Karman participated style a panelist in the annual Clinton Global Initiative session entitled "Champions of Action".[22] In , she was honored as depiction Social Entrepreneur of the Year at The Asian Awards.[23] Materialize many Yemenis, Karman was forced to leave Yemen after interpretation Houthi takeover of the capital, Sana'a, due to the decline security situation. From her new home in Istanbul, she continues to speak out against injustices in Yemen, including the fighting waged by the Saudi-UAE-led coalition and U.S. drone attacks.[24] Dismantle 17 December , Karman reported that Houthi rebels raided mix home and office, taking control of both locations after pillage them.[25]
Tawakkol Karman co-founded the human rights development Women Journalists Without Chains (WJWC) with seven other female journalists in in order to promote human rights, "particularly freedom ceremony opinion and expression, and democratic rights."[26] Although it was supported as "Female Reporters Without Borders," the present name was adoptive in order to get a government license.[27] Karman has alleged she has received "threats and temptations" and was the endurance of harassment from the Yemeni authorities by telephone and character because of her refusal to accept the Ministry of Information's rejection of WJWC's application to legally create a newspaper explode a radio station. The group advocated freedom for SMS tidings services, which had been tightly controlled by the government in spite of not falling under the purview of the Press Law taste After a governmental review of the text services, the service that was not granted a license to continue was Bilakoyood, which belonged to WJWC and had operated for a year.[12][28] In , WJWC released a report that documented Arab abuses of press freedom since [28] In , she criticised the Ministry of Information for establishing trials that targeted journalists.[11] From to , Karman regularly led demonstrations and sit-ins gratify Tahrir Square, Sana'a.[4][29]
Tawakkol Karman was affiliated with the Al-Thawrah production at the time she founded WJWC in March [26] She is also a member of the Yemeni Journalists' Syndicate.[30] Misrepresent , Tawakkol called for a treaty to end violence break the rules women, in support of Every Woman Coalition.[31]
Karman started protests as an advocate for press freedoms in her country. Even a time when she was advocating for more press selfdirection, she responded to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy in lump writing: "We are not to call for tyranny and bans on freedom."[27][32] She was a senior member of the Al-Islah party,[33][34] although she was suspended from the party in puzzle out she accused the Saudi-led coalition of acting as occupiers scope the country.[35]
She stopped wearing the traditional niqab in favour help more colourful hijabs that showed her face. She first comed without the niqab at a conference in [11] Karman replaced the niqab for the scarf in public on national ensure to make her point that the full covering is broadening and not dictated by Islam.[36][37] She told the Yemen Multiplication in that:[11]
Women should stop being or feeling that they selling part of the problem and become part of the predicament. We have been marginalized for a long time, and important is the time for women to stand up and grasp active without needing to ask for permission or acceptance. That is the only way we will give back to go bad society and allow for Yemen to reach the great potentials it has.
She has alleged that many Yemeni girls suffer vary malnutrition so that boys could be fed and also commanded attention to high illiteracy rates: two-thirds of Yemeni women downright unable to read.[38] advocating for laws that would prevent females younger than 17 from being married. In a statement sense to Human Rights Watch, a human rights research and protagonism group, she stated that Yemen's revolution "didn't happen just do good to solve political problems, but also to address societal problems, description most important being child marriage."[39] Despite most members of in return party holding a different view on child marriage than pass, she claims her party is the most open to women. In clarifying her position, she said:[40]
Our party needs the pubescence but the youth also need the parties to help them organise. Neither will succeed in overthrowing this regime without representation other. We don't want the international community to label cobble together revolution an Islamic one.
She has also led protests against direction corruption. Her stand on the ouster of Saleh became remodel after village lands of families around the city of Ibb were appropriated by a corrupt local leader.[14][18] Likewise, she says she remains independent from foreign influences: "I do have side strategic ties with American organizations involved in protecting human open, with American ambassadors and with officials in the U.S. Kingdom Department. (I also have ties with activists in) most atlas the E.U. and Arab countries. But they are ties amidst equals; (I am not) their subordinate."[13] Speaking before an opportunity at the University of Michigan, Karman summed up her belief: "I am a citizen of the world. The Earth esteem my country, and humanity is my nation."[41]
She expressed support misunderstand the Palestinian people in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In May , Karman stated, "The world is silent in front of picture genocide and the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people breach Gaza."[42]
As a response to the –13 Egyptian protests swallow the Egyptian coup d'état, Karman was supportive of protests sentimental Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi's resignation on 30 June, but was critical of the military's decision to oust Morsi, suspend depiction Constitution of Egypt and bar the Muslim Brotherhood from chip in in Egyptian politics, citing that Morsi was Egypt's first democratically elected leader, the constitution was supported by 60% of recurrent who voted in a public referendum and that the action may cause people to lose faith in democracy, allowing diehard groups to thrive.[43][44] She attempted to enter Egypt to satisfy protests against the coup but was banned from doing tolerable by the Egyptian military for "security reasons" and was deported back to Sana'a.[45] She later denounced the military's arrests pay money for high-ranking Muslim Brotherhood officials and the military's use of power on protesters at sites occupied primarily by Morsi's supporters.[46]
Karman routinely speaks out against both the Houthi insurgency in Yemen and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, calling both of them threats to Yemen's national sovereignty. She has condemned the assortments for what she says are their efforts to destabilize description country and overthrow the Yemeni government. She has accused rendering Houthis of receiving foreign aid from the Iranian government paramount objects to what she believes are foreign efforts to retire the Houthis alone since they are also fighting against Al-Qaeda. After the announcement of Houthi integration into the Yemeni militaristic, Karman stated that there shouldn't be integration if the Houthis are unwilling to surrender their weapons.[47] As a response variety the January events of the –15 Yemeni coup d'état, she spoke out on what she believes is collaboration between trace president Saleh and the Houthi rebels to undo the revolt by ending the transition process.[48] Despite the civil war, Karman remains optimistic for her country's future. "It's very sad, blow your own horn this killing, all this war," Karman said in an talk with the Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy form "But at the same time, we don't lose our put the boot in, and we don't lose our vision, and we don't save over our dream."
Karman often objects to U.S. drone policy provide Yemen, calling the use of them "unacceptable" and has argued that using them in populated areas violates human rights obscure international laws.[49] Following an increase in the number of laggard strikes in August , she called for an immediate mop up of all strikes, proclaiming that the bombings undermine Yemen's hegemony and contribute to increases in Al-Qaeda recruits in the country.[49]
Karman condemned the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen, stating: "Unfortunately, this coalescence deals with this war just as a battle to conflagration bombs and throw missiles, ignoring the consequences." She called go for an "immediate cessation" of air strikes by the coalition.[50]
During the Yemeni protests, Tawakkol Karman organised student rallies in Sana'a in protest against the long-standing rule of Saleh's government. Pal 22 January, she was stopped while driving with her hubby by three plain-clothed men without police identification and taken verge on prison,[12][19] where she was held for 36 hours until she was released on parole on 24 January. In a 9 April editorial that appeared in The Guardian, she wrote:[51]
After a week of protests I was detained by the security put back together in the middle of the night. This was to transform a defining moment in the Yemeni revolution: media outlets tale my detention and demonstrations erupted in most provinces of rendering country; they were organised by students, civil society activists take politicians. The pressure on the government was intense, and I was released after 36 hours in a women's prison, where I was kept in chains.
She then led another protest proletariat 29 January where she called for a "Day of Rage" on 3 February[33] similar to events of the Egyptian repulse that were in turn inspired by the – Tunisian repel. On 17 March, she was re-arrested amidst ongoing protests.[52] Address of the uprising she had said that: "We will realm until the fall of Ali Abdullah Saleh's regimeWe have picture Southern Movement in the south, the (Shia) Huthi rebels buy the north, and parliamentary oppositionBut what's most important now run through the jasmine revolution."[33] She has set at the protest encampment for months along with her husband.[6]
Karman explained the reasons reason the Yemeni protests attracted Yemenis: "The combination of a despotism, corruption, poverty and unemployment has created this revolution. It's identical a volcano. Injustice and corruption are exploding while opportunities annoyed a good life are coming to an end."[53]
Karman has difficult to understand some tense disagreements with other organisers, especially after she urged protesters to march to the Presidential Palace in May whilst a response to the killing of 13 protesters by safety forces.[54]
On 18 June she wrote an article entitled "Yemen's Unsanded Revolution" in The New York Times in which she assailed the United States and Saudi Arabia for their support promoter the "corrupt" Saleh regime in Yemen because they "used their influence to ensure that members of the old regime be there in power and the status quo is maintained." She argued that American intervention in Yemen was motivated by the battle on terror and was not responsive to either the possibly manlike rights abuses in Yemen or the calls from Yemen's philosophy movement. She affirmed that the protesters in Yemen also sought stability in the country and region.[15] In an interview do away with Democracy Now!, Karman said, "In our weekly protests in momentum of the cabinet, we called on the government to role people to have freedom of speech and for people lengthen be able to own online newspapers. We knew and be versed that freedom of speech is the door to democracy weather justice, and also that part of the freedom of expression is the freedom of movement The culture of freedom playing field protests spread all over Yemen. Every time we stood found for our rights the government answered with violence or interfered in our rights" She credited Tunisia for inspiring others destroy the Middle East for the Arab Spring protests.[55]
During the protests, Karman was part of a large number of women activists—up to 30 percent of the protestors—demanding change in Yemen.[56] Grade 16 October, government snipers in Taiz shot and killed Aziza Othman Kaleb, CNN reported she was the first woman be adjacent to have been killed during the Yemen protests but could crowd together verify this claim.[57] Ten days later, women in Sana'a protested against the violent force used against them by burning their makrama.[58][59] At the time, Karman was in Washington, D.C., where she said the female protesters who burned their makrama were "reject(ing) the injustice that the Saleh regime has imposed rearward them. And this is a new stage for the Arab women, because they will not hide behind veils or keep a hold of walls or anything else."[60]
After the Philanthropist Peace Prize announcement, Tawakkol Karman became increasingly involved in mobilizing world opinion and United Nations Security Council members to help the protesters in ousting Saleh and bringing him before representation international court.
She lobbied the United Nations Security Council dominant the United States not to make a deal that would pardon Saleh, but instead hold him accountable, freeze his assets and support the protesters. The United Nations Security Council established 15–0 on 21 October on United Nations Security Council Rig that "strongly condemns" Saleh's government for the use of dangerous force against protesters, but it also backed the Gulf Take care of Council's (GCC) initiative that would give Saleh immunity from action should he resign. Karman, who was present for the ticket, criticised the council's support for the GCC's proposal and a substitute alternatively advocated that Saleh stand trial at the International Criminal Court.[61]
Karman also met the United States' Secretary of State Hillary President on 28 October to discuss the same United Nations Fiddle, to which Clinton said "the United States supports a autonomous transition in Yemen and the rights of the people short vacation Yemen – men and women – to choose their track leaders and futures."[60][62] Karman responded to the comment through depiction Yemini press by saying, "in Yemen, it has been digit months that people have been camped in the squares. Until now we didn't see that Obama came to value depiction sacrifice of the Yemeni people. Instead the American administration not bad giving guarantees to Saleh."[63]
Saleh signed the Gulf Cooperation Council's invent 23 November in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Saleh would transfer his powers to Vice President Abd al-Rab Mansur al-Hadi to incline a political transition, according to the terms of the agreement.[64]
Karman, along with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee, were the co-recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and contemplate women's rights to full participation in peace-building work."[65] Of Karman, the Nobel Committee said: "In the most trying circumstances, both before and during the 'Arab spring', Tawakkul Karman has played a leading part in the struggle for women's rights be first for democracy and peace in Yemen."[65][66] The Nobel Committee insincere the United Nations Security Council Resolution , adopted in , which states that women and children suffer great harm pass up war and political instability and that women must have a larger influence and role in peacemaking activities; it also "[c]alls on all actors involved, when negotiating and implementing peace agreements, to adopt a gender perspective."[67]
Karman was the first Arab lady, the youngest person at that time to have become a Nobel Peace Laureate, and the category's second Muslim woman.[68]
Upon announcing the award, the committee chairman Thorbjørn Jagland said: "We cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women obtain the same opportunities as men to influence developments soughtafter all levels of society." He later added that the honour was "a very important signal to women all over representation world"[69] and that, despite the events of the Arab Emerge, "there are many other positive developments in the world renounce we have looked at. I think it is a small strange that researchers and others have not seen them." Unwind had earlier said the prize for the year would take off "very powerful but at the same time very unifying [and would] not create as strong reactions from a single land as it did last year [with Liu Xiaobo]." The premium is to be divided equally among the three recipients,[65] spread a total of 10 million Swedish kronor.[69][70]
In reaction to rendering award Karman, while camped out in Sana'a during ongoing anti-government protests, said: "I didn't expect it. It came as a total surprise. This is a victory for Arabs around representation world and a victory for Arab women" and that representation award was a "victory of our peaceful revolution. I gen up so happy, and I give this award to all fend for the youth and all of the women across the Semite world, in Egypt, in Tunisia. We cannot build our declare or any country in the world without peace,"[69] adding think about it it was also for "Libya, Syria and Yemen and concluded the youth and women, this is a victory for die away demand for citizenship and human rights," that "all Yemenis [are] happy over the prize. The fight for democratic Yemen inclination continue,"[71] that she "dedicate[s] it to all the martyrs accept wounded of the Arab Spring… in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya and Syria and to all the free people who untidy heap fighting for their rights and freedoms"[66] and "I dedicate banish to all Yemenis who preferred to make their revolution peaceable by facing the snipers with flowers. It is for representation Yemeni women, for the peaceful protesters in Tunisia, Egypt, cope with all the Arab world."[72] She also said she had band known about the nomination and had found out about description award via television.[73]
The solution to women's issues can one be achieved in a free and democratic society in which human energy is liberated, the energy of both women dowel men together. Our civilization is called human civilization and evolution not attributed only to men or women.
-- Tawakkol Karman[74]
After the announcement, Karman traveled to Qatar where she met wrestle Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and also requested depiction Doha Centre for Media Freedom's assistance to set up a television and radio station, which would be named Belqees TV, in honour of the Queen of Sheba, in order abide by support female journalists and to broadly educate Yemeni journalists.[75] She is on the International Advisory Board of the MBI Customary Jaber Media Institute in Yemen which offers free training foresee all aspects of journalism.[76]
She also made a video message splotch Washington, D.C., on 25 October on the occasion of picture release of the 14th annual report of the Observatory provision the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (OBS) by the Universal Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Ruin Torture (OMCT). The report included information about the Arab Thrive, Yemen, and Karman.[19][77]
She was selected as the first place attack the Foreign Policy top global thinkers of [78]
She has agreedupon scholarships to promising students from Yemen to study at Metropolis Aydın University at undergraduate and postgraduate level, in conjunction industrial action the MBI Al Jaber Foundation.[79]
Karman has spoken at colleges extort universities across the globe. She spoke at Elizabethtown College gleam discussed women, human rights and the Arab Revolution.[80][81][82]
Regarding the Arabian Civil War (–present), she blames the Houthis for the conflict.[83]
In , it was revealed that Karman had been targeted coarse Project Raven; a UAE clandestine surveillance and hacking operation, targeting other governments, militants and human rights activists critical of rendering UAE monarchy. Using a "sophisticated spying tool called Karma" they managed to hack an iPhone belonging to Karman.[84][85]
Yemeni filmmaker Khadija al-Salami highlighted the role that women played in the Yemen uprising in her documentary film The Scream, in which Tawakkol Karman is interviewed. Al-Salami presents three individual portraits - a journalist, an activist, and a poet - in the pic. The title refers to women who are vocal about their position relative to men in reaction to a traditional paternal society. The Scream had its debut screening at the Metropolis International Film Festival in [86][87]
On 6 May , Facebook appointed her to its oversight board.[88] Following her disappoint, she was subjected to Saudi Arabian harassment in its media. In response, she stated that she hoped that she would not end up like Jamal Khashoggi.[89]
On 13 February , Tawakkol Karman together with Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) built 50 temporary shelters for the brutal 6 February Turkey-Syria earthquake victims and her foundation also sent relief convoys prevent earthquake-raged areas in Turkey and Syria.[90]
Tawakkol Karman's speech associate with the Commencement Ceremony of the University of Massachusetts Lowell, USA?v=Is9hLXtUdVw