Tawakkol Karman

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Tawakel Karman Al-Mekhlafi
توكل كرمان المخلافي
Born (1979-02-07) 7 February 1979 (age 45)
Taiz, Yemen
NationalityYemeni
Occupation(s)Journalist, politician and human rights activist
Political partyAl-Islah
ChildrenThree
Awards2011 Nobel Peace Prize

Tawakel Karman Al-Mekhlafi (Arabic: توكل كرمان Tawakkul Karmān) (Anglicised: Tawakel,[1] Tawakkol,[2] Tawakkul[3] or Tawakel Abdel-Salam Karman[4][5][6]) (born 7 February 1979[6]) is a Yemeni journalist and politician who is a senior member of Al-Islah[7] and a human rights activist who heads the group Women Journalists Without Chains, which she co-founded in 2005.[1] Karman gained prominence in her country after 2005 in her roles as a Yemeni journalist and an advocate for a mobile phone news service in 2007, after which she led protests for press freedom.[7] Karman organized weekly protests after May 2007.[8] She then became the international public face of the 2011 Yemeni uprising that was a part of the Arab Spring. She has been called by Yemenis the "Iron Woman" and "Mother of the Revolution".[9][10] She is a co-recipient of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize[11] and the first Arab woman and first Yemini citizen to win a Nobel Prize.

Personal life

Tawakel Karman was born on 7 February 1979 in Taiz, Yemen. She is the daughter of Abdel Salam Karman Al-Mekhlafi, a lawyer and politician, who once served and later resigned as Legal Affairs Minister in Ali Abdullah Saleh's government. She is the sister of Tariq Karman, who is a poet.[12] Karman is a writer and civil rights advocate. She is married to Mohammed al-Nahmi[6][10] and is the mother of three children.[2]

Saleh is the only President that Kaman has ever known, in that he took power a half year before she was born.

At a protest in 2010, a woman attempted to stab her with a jambiya but Karman's supporters managed to stop the assault.[13][14]

Political positions

Karman is a member of Al-Islah, which sits in the opposition. She started protests as an advocate for press freedoms. She has also led protests against government corruption. She has advocated for laws that would prevent females younger than 17 from being married. She has also stopped wearing the traditional niqab, which is a full covering, in favour of more colourful scarves, often pink, that show her face. She first appeared without the niqab at a conference in 2004.[8] Karman replaced the niqab for the scarf in public on national television to make her point that the full covering is cultural and not dictated by Islam.[15][16] She told the Yemen Times in 2010:

"Women should stop being or feeling that they are part of the problem and become part of the solution. We have been marginalized for a long time, and now is the time for women to stand up and become active without needing to ask for permission or acceptance. This is the only way we will give back to our society and allow for Yemen to reach the great potentials it has."[8]

She has also charged that many Yemeni girls suffered from malnutrition so that boys could be fed and called attention to high illiteracy rates, which includes two-thirds of Yemeni women.[17]

Women Journalists Without Chains

Tawakel Karman co-founded the human rights group Women Journalists Without Chains (WJWC) with 7 other female journalists in 2005 in order to promote human rights, "particularly freedom of opinion and expression, and democratic rights." The organisation was originally called "Female Reporters Without Borders." She has said she has received "threats and temptations" and was the target of harrassment from the Yemeni authorities by telephone and letter because of her refusal to accept the Ministry of Information rejection of WJWC's application to legally create a newspaper and a radio station. The group advocated freedom for SMS news services, which had been tightly controlled by the government despite not falling under the purview of the Press Law of 1990. After a governmental review of the text services, the only service that was not granted a license to continue was Bilakoyood, which belonged to WJWC and had operated for a year.[18][12] In 2007, WJWC released a report that documented Yemeni abuses of press freedom since 2005.[18] In 2009, she criticized the Ministry of Information for establishing trials that targeted journalists.[8]From 2007 to 2010, Karman regularly led demonstrations and sit-ins in Change Square, in Sana'a.[1][19]

Tawakel Karman was affiliated with the Al-Thawrah newspaper at the time she founded WJWC in March 2005.[20]

She is a member of the Yemeni Journalists' Syndicate.[21]

2011 protests

Protest on the "Day of Rage" that Karman had called for in Sana'a, Yemen, from 3 February 2011.

During the ongoing 2011 Yemeni protests Karman organised student rallies in Sana'a to protest against Saleh and his government. She was arrested once, amid complaints her husband did not know her whereabouts. On January 22, she was stopped while driving by plain-clothed men without identification and taken to prison,[12] 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:

After a week of protests I was detained by the security forces in the middle of the night. This was to become a defining moment in the Yemeni revolution: media outlets reported my detention and demonstrations erupted in most provinces of the country; they were organised by students, civil society activists and 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.[22]

She then led another protest on 29 January where she called for a "Day of Rage" on 3 February[7] similar to that of the 2011 Egyptian revolution that were in turn inspired by the 2010–2011 Tunisian revolution. On 17 March, she was re-arrested amidst ongoing protests.[23] Speaking of the uprising she had said that: "We will continue until the fall of Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime... We have the Southern Movement in the south, the (Shia) Huthi rebels in the north, and parliamentary opposition... But what's most important now is the jasmine revolution."[7] She has set at the protest camp for months along with her husband.[10]

On 18 June she wrote an article entitled "Yemen's Unfinished Revolution" in the New York Times in which she assailed the United States and Saudi Arabia for their support for the "corrupt" Saleh regime in Yemen because they "used their influence to ensure that members of the old regime remain in power and the status quo is maintained." She argued that American intervention in Yemen was motivated by the war on terror and was not responsive to either the human rights abuses in Yemen or the calls from Yemen’s democracy movement. She affirmed that the protesters in Yemen also wanted stability in the country and region.[2]

2011 Nobel Peace Prize

At 32, Tawakel Karman is one of the youngest winners of a Nobel Peace Prize as she is slightly younger than Mairead Maguire, who was a co-recipient of the award in 1976.[24] Before the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded, only 12 other women had ever been recipients in over 110 years, and Karman became the first Arab woman and the youngest person ever to become a Nobel Peace Laureate.[25]

Karman, along with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee, were the co-recipients of the the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work."[3] 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 and for democracy and peace in Yemen."[3][26] The Nobel Committee cited the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, which was adopted in 2000, and it states that women and children suffer great harm from war and political stability and that women must have a larger influence and role in peacemaking activities, and it further calls for future negotiations of peace to adopt a "gender perspective".[27]

Upon announcing the award, former Norwegian Prime Minister and chairman of the committee to decide the award Thorbjorn Jagland said: "We cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women obtain the same opportunities as men to influence developments at all levels of society." He later added that the prize was "a very important signal to women all over the world"[28] and that, despite the events of the Arab Spring, "there are many other positive developments in the world that we have looked at. I think it is a little strange that researchers and others have not seen them." He had earlier said the prize for the year would be "very powerful ... but at the same time very unifying [and would] not create as strong reactions from a single country as it did last year." Geir Lundestad, director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, said it had been a conscious decision to award the prize this year to women: "We want to point to the role of women and the inferior role of women and how this role can be improved"; "I mean, women suffer in wars and if we are to have peace, we have to have democracy with full rights for women and we also have to have women as peace builders. So this year, it was the year of the women."[19] The prize is to be divided equally among the three recipients,[3] from a total of 10 million Swedish kronor.[29] (approximately US$1.5 million)[28]

In reaction to the 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 the world and a victory for Arab women" and that the award was a "victory of our peaceful revolution. I am so happy, and I give this award to all of the youth and all of the women across the Arab world, in Egypt, in Tunisia. We cannot build our country or any country in the world without peace,"[28] adding that it was also for "Libya, Syria and Yemen and all the youth and women, this is a victory for our demand for citizenship and human rights," that "all Yemenis [are] happy over the prize. The fight for democratic Yemen will continue,"[30] that she "dedicate[s] it to all the martyrs and wounded of the Arab Spring… in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya and Syria and to all the free people who are fighting for their rights and freedoms"[26] and "I dedicate it to all Yemenis who preferred to make their revolution peaceful by facing the snipers with flowers. It is for the Yemeni women, for the peaceful protesters in Tunisia, Egypt, and all the Arab world."[31] She also said she had not known about the nomination and had found out about the award via television.[32]

Other reactions included Shadi Hamid, the director of research at the Brookings Doha Centre, who said the award was "surprising. People were very excited and thought this year would be the year of the Arab Spring. I am not sure what the rationale was exactly, but I think this might be interpreted as a slight to the Arab world."[19]

References

  1. ^ a b c Al-Sakkaf, Nadia (17 June 2010). "Renowned activist and press freedom advocate Tawakul Karman to the Yemen Times: "A day will come when all human rights violators pay for what they did to Yemen"". Women Journalists Without Chains. Archived from the original on 30 January 2011. Retrieved 30 January 2011. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  2. ^ a b c Tawakkol Karman. "Yemen's Unfinished Revolution." The New York Times. 18 June 2011. Retrieved 8 October 2011 NYTimes
  3. ^ a b c d "The Nobel Peace Prize 2011 - Press Release". Nobelprize.org, 7 Oct 2011. Retrieved 8 October 2011NobelPrize
  4. ^ Evening Times (Glasgow). Arrest Sparks Protest. 24 January 2011. Retrieved 8 October 2011 from the Lexis-Nexis Database.
  5. ^ Emad Mekay. Arab Women Lead the Charge. Inter Press Service (Johannesburg), 11 February 2011. Retrieved 8 October 2011 from the Lexis-Nexis Database.
  6. ^ a b c "Yemen laureate figure of hope and controversy." Oman Daily Observer, 8 October 2011. Retrieved 8 October 2011. Oman Observer
  7. ^ a b c d "New protests erupt in Yemen". Al Jazeera English. 29 January 2011. Archived from the original on 30 January 2011. Retrieved 30 January 2011. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  8. ^ a b c d Yemen Times. "Renowned activist and press freedom advocate Tawakul Karman to the Yemen Times:'A day will come when all human rights violators pay for what they did to Yemen.'" 17 June 2010. Retrieved 9 October 2011 Yemen Times
  9. ^ Alastair MacDonald and Gwladys Fouche. "Nobel honours African, Arab women for peace." Reuters, 7 October 2011. Retrieved 8 October 2011 Reuters
  10. ^ a b c Ahmed Al-Haj and Sarah El-Deeb. "Nobel peace winner Tawakkul Karman dubbed 'the mother of Yemen's revolution'" Associated Press/Forbes, 7 October 2011. Retrieved 8 October 2011 Forbes
  11. ^ BBC News World. "Nobel Peace Prize awarded jointly to three women." 7 October 2011. Retrieved 8 October 2011 BBC News
  12. ^ a b c Dexter Filkins. "After the Uprising: Can protesters find a path between dictatorship and anarchy?" The New Yorker. 11 April 2011. Retrieved 9 October 2011 New Yorker
  13. ^ Tom Finn. "Middle East/Yemen: Undaunted by death threats: the thorn in Saleh's side." The Guardian, 26 March 2011. Retrieved 8 October 2011 from the Lexis Nexis Database.
  14. ^ Adrian Blomfield. "Nobel peace prize: profile of Tawakul Karman." The Telegraph (UK), 8 October 2011. Retrieved 8 October 2011 Telegraph
  15. ^ Tom Finn. "Middle East/Yemen: Undaunted by death threats: the thorn in Saleh's side." The Guardian, 26 March 2011. Retrieved 8 October 2011 The Guardian.
  16. ^ Laura Kasinof. "Yemen releases jailed activists in the face of Tunisia-inspired protesters." The Christian Science Monitor, 24 January 2011. Retrieved 8 October 2011 CSMonitor
  17. ^ AsiaNews.it. "Tawakul Karman gets 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, leads Yemeni women’s Arab spring." 7 October 2011. Retrieved 8 October 2011 AsiaNews.it
  18. ^ a b Zaid al-Alaya’a. "Blacklist names worst violators of press freedom." 9 August 2007. Retrieved 8 October 2011. Yemen Observer
  19. ^ a b c "Three women share Nobel Peace Prize – Europe". Al Jazeera English. 4 October 2011. Retrieved 8 October 2011.
  20. ^ Mohammed al-Kibsi. "Female Journalists without Borders." Yemen Observer, 12 March 2005. Retrieved 8 October 2011. Yemen Observer
  21. ^ International Federation of Journalists. "IFJ Welcomes Nobel Peace Prize Award to Yemeni Journalist" 7 October 2011. Retrieved 9 October 2011 IFJ
  22. ^ Tawakkol Karman. "Our revolution's doing what Saleh can't - uniting Yemen." The Guardian, 9 April 2011. Retrieved 8 October 2011 from the Lexis-Nexis Database.
  23. ^ Finn, Tom (23 January 2011). "Yemen arrests anti-government activist". The Guardian. London.
  24. ^ "Nobel Laureates – FAQ". nobelprize.org. Retrieved 7 October 2011.
  25. ^ Democracy Now. "Yemeni Activist Tawakkul Karman, First Female Arab Nobel Peace Laureate: A Nod for Arab Spring" 7 October 2011. Retrieved 8 October 2011. DemocracyNow
  26. ^ a b "BBC News – Profile: Nobel peace laureate Tawakul Karman". BBC. 15 September 2011. Retrieved 8 October 2011.
  27. ^ United Nations Security Council. Resolution 1325. Adopted 31 October 2000. Retrieved 9 October 2011 United Nations
  28. ^ a b c Alan Cowell, Laura Kasinoff, and Adam Nossiter. "Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to Three Activist Women." The New York Times, 7 October 2011. Retrieved 8 October 2011NYTimes
  29. ^ Prize value 2011
  30. ^ "Yemeni activist wins Nobel Peace Prize – Middle East". Al Jazeera English. 4 October 2011. Retrieved 8 October 2011.
  31. ^ "PressTV – We will press on: Yemeni Nobel laureate". Presstv.ir. Retrieved 8 October 2011.
  32. ^ Fatma Naib (4 October 2011). "Karman: Peaceful revolution 'only solution' – Features". Al Jazeera English. Retrieved 8 October 2011.

External links

Awards and achievements
Preceded by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
with Leymah Gbowee and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
2011 		Most recent

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