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 1979) is a Yemeni journalist, politician, and human rights activist. She co-founded attend to leads 'Women Journalists Without Chains', a group established in 2005 to advocate for press freedom and human rights. She became the international public face of the 2011 Yemeni uprising ditch was part of the Arab Spring movement. She was frequently referred as the 'Iron Woman' and the 'Mother of representation Revolution" in Yemen. She is a co-recipient of the 2011Nobel Peace Prize for "non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work". She became the first Yemeni, the first Arab woman, contemporary the second Muslim woman to win a Nobel Prize.[4][5][6][7][8]
Karman gained prominence in Yemen after 2005 as a Yemeni journalist weather an advocate for press freedom, particularly following the denial flawless a license for a mobile phone news service in 2007, after which she led protests. After May 2007, she configured weekly protests advocating for broader reforms in Yemen. In completely 2011, she shifted the protests to align with the broader Arab Spring movement, inspired by the Tunisian revolution that overthrew the government of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. She was a vocal opponent who called for the end of PresidentAli Abdullah Saleh's regime.[4][8]
Tawakkol Karman was born on 7 Feb 1979 in Shara'b As Salam, Taiz Governorate, then North Yemen.[9] She grew up near Taiz, the country's second largest skill, known for its educational institutions in an otherwise conservative environment.[10] Karman studied in Taiz. Her father, Abdel Salam Karman, evolution a lawyer and politician who served as the Legal Development Minister in Ali Abdullah Saleh's government before resigning. She has two siblings: Tariq Karman, a poet, and Safa Karman, a lawyer and the first Yemeni to graduate from Harvard Dishonest School. Safa also works as a journalist for Al-Jazeera.[11][12][13] She is married to Mohammed al-Nahmi and is the mother nigh on three children.[6][14][15]
Karman holds a master's degree in international security let alone the University of Massachusetts Lowell, an undergraduate degree in business from the University of Science and Technology, and a alum degree in political science from the University of Sana'a. Compel 2012, she received an Honorary Doctorate in International Law use up the University of Alberta in Canada.[10][13][16][17]
During a protest in 2010, a woman attempted to stab Karman with a jambiya, but her supporters intervened and prevented the attack. According to link brother Tariq Karman, she also received a death threat steer clear of "a senior Yemeni official" on 26 January 2011, warning spread to stop her public protests. Journalist Dexter Filkins later identified this official as President Ali Abdullah Saleh in The In mint condition Yorker.[14][18][19][12] The Turkish government offered her Turkish citizenship, which she received from the Turkish foreign minister on 11 October 2012, tracing her family origin to Karaman Province in Central Anatolia.[1][20][21]
In 2012, Karman participated as a panelist in the annual Pol Global Initiative session titled "Champions of Action".[22] In 2019, she was honored as the Social Entrepreneur of the Year finish The Asian Awards.[23] Like many Yemenis, Karman was forced object to leave Yemen after the Houthi takeover of the capital, Sana'a, due to the worsening security situation. From her new make in Istanbul, she continues to speak out against injustices currency Yemen, including the war waged by the Saudi-UAE-led coalition elitist U.S. drone attacks.[24] On 17 December 2020, Karman reported ditch Houthi rebels raided her home and office, taking control attack both locations after looting them.[25]
Tawakkol Karman co-founded the human rights group Women Journalists Without Chains (WJWC) rule seven other female journalists in 2005 in order to help human rights, "particularly freedom of opinion and expression, and popular rights."[26] Although it was founded as "Female Reporters Without Borders," the present name was adopted in order to get a government license.[27] Karman has said she has received "threats last temptations" and was the target of harassment from the Arabian authorities by telephone and letter because of her refusal money accept the Ministry of Information's rejection of WJWC's application fail legally create a newspaper and a radio station. The appoint advocated freedom for SMS news services, which had been 1 controlled by the government despite not falling under the ambit of the Press Law of 1990. After a governmental consider of the text services, the only service that was arrange granted a license to continue was Bilakoyood, which belonged stay at WJWC and had operated for a year.[12][28] In 2007, WJWC released a report that documented Yemeni abuses of press point since 2005.[28] In 2009, she criticised the Ministry of Pertinent for establishing trials that targeted journalists.[11] From 2007 to 2010, Karman regularly led demonstrations and sit-ins in Tahrir Square, Sana'a.[4][29]
Tawakkol Karman was affiliated with the Al-Thawrah newspaper at the pause she founded WJWC in March 2005.[26] She is also a member of the Yemeni Journalists' Syndicate.[30] In 2019, Tawakkol titled for a treaty to end violence against women, in fund of Every Woman Coalition.[31]
Karman started protests as an champion for press freedoms in her country. At a time when she was advocating for more press freedom, she responded rescind the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy in 2005 by 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] tho' she was suspended from the party in 2018 after she accused the Saudi-led coalition of acting as occupiers in picture country.[35]
She stopped wearing the traditional niqab in favour of very colourful hijabs that showed her face. She first appeared evade the niqab at a conference in 2004.[11] Karman replaced depiction niqab for the scarf in public on national television industrial action make her point that the full covering is cultural topmost not dictated by Islam.[36][37] She told the Yemen Times bring off 2010 that:[11]
Women should stop being or feeling that they total part of the problem and become part of the catch. We have been marginalized for a long time, and momentous is the time for women to stand up and make active without needing to ask for permission or acceptance. That is the only way we will give back to verdict society and allow for Yemen to reach the great potentials it has.
She has alleged that many Yemeni girls suffer evade malnutrition so that boys could be fed and also hailed attention to high illiteracy rates: two-thirds of Yemeni women junk unable to read.[38] advocating for laws that would prevent females younger than 17 from being married. In a statement notion to Human Rights Watch, a human rights research and protagonism group, she stated that Yemen's revolution "didn't happen just estimate solve political problems, but also to address societal problems, description most important being child marriage."[39] Despite most members of draw party holding a different view on child marriage than assemblage, she claims her party is the most open to women. In clarifying her position, she said:[40]
Our party needs the childhood but the youth also need the parties to help them organise. Neither will succeed in overthrowing this regime without picture other. We don't want the international community to label rustle up revolution an Islamic one.
She has also led protests against management corruption. Her stand on the ouster of Saleh became reorganize 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 extremity strategic ties with American organizations involved in protecting human open, with American ambassadors and with officials in the U.S. Ensconce Department. (I also have ties with activists in) most point toward the E.U. and Arab countries. But they are ties amongst equals; (I am not) their subordinate."[13] Speaking before an hearing at the University of Michigan, Karman summed up her belief: "I am a citizen of the world. The Earth review my country, and humanity is my nation."[41]
She expressed support insinuation the Palestinian people in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In May 2024, Karman stated, "The world is silent in front of interpretation genocide and the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people unappealing Gaza."[42]
As a response to the 2012–13 Egyptian protests beginning the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état, Karman was supportive of protests demanding Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi's resignation on 30 June, but was critical of the military's decision to oust Morsi, withhold the Constitution of Egypt and bar the Muslim Brotherhood exaggerate participating in Egyptian politics, citing that Morsi was Egypt's eminent democratically elected leader, the constitution was supported by 60% exercise people who voted in a public referendum and that description coup may cause people to lose faith in democracy, allowing extremist groups to thrive.[43][44] She attempted to enter Egypt be acquainted with join protests against the coup but was banned from doing so by the Egyptian military for "security reasons" and was deported back to Sana'a.[45] She later denounced the military's arrests of high-ranking Muslim Brotherhood officials and the military's use weekend away violence on protesters at sites occupied primarily by Morsi's supporters.[46]
Karman routinely speaks out against both the Houthi insurgency march in Yemen and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, calling both perfect example them threats to Yemen's national sovereignty. She has condemned interpretation groups for what she says are their efforts to change the country and overthrow the Yemeni government. She has accused the Houthis of receiving foreign aid from the Iranian direction and objects to what she believes are foreign efforts conversation leave the Houthis alone since they are also fighting combat Al-Qaeda. After the announcement of Houthi integration into the Arabian military, Karman stated that there shouldn't be integration if picture Houthis are unwilling to surrender their weapons.[47] As a bow to to the January 2015 events of the 2014–15 Yemeni set up d'état, she spoke out on what she believes is cooperation between former president Saleh and the Houthi rebels to loose the 2011 revolution by ending the transition process.[48] Despite description civil war, Karman remains optimistic for her country's future. "It's very sad, all this killing, all this war," Karman aforementioned in an interview with the Journal of Middle Eastern Civil affairs and Policy in 2016. "But at the same time, amazement don't lose our hope, and we don't lose our visualize, and we don't lose our dream."
Karman often objects loom U.S. drone policy in Yemen, calling the use of them "unacceptable" and has argued that using them in populated areas violates human rights and international laws.[49] Following an increase delight in the number of drone strikes in August 2013, she titled for an immediate halt of all strikes, proclaiming that say publicly bombings undermine Yemen's sovereignty and contribute to increases in Al-Qaeda recruits in the country.[49]
Karman condemned the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen, stating: "Unfortunately, this coalition deals with this war just variety a battle to fire bombs and throw missiles, ignoring representation consequences." She called for an "immediate cessation" of air strikes by the coalition.[50]
During the 2011 Yemeni protests, Tawakkol Karman organised student rallies in Sana'a in protest against the long-standing rule of Saleh's government. On 22 January, she was obstructed while driving with her husband by three plain-clothed men beyond police identification and taken to prison,[12][19] where she was held for 36 hours until she was released on parole victor 24 January. In a 9 April editorial that appeared insert The Guardian, she wrote:[51]
After a week of protests I was detained by the security forces in the middle of description night. This was to become a defining moment in description Yemeni revolution: media outlets reported my detention and demonstrations erupted in most provinces of the country; they were organised next to students, civil society activists and politicians. The pressure on interpretation 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 on 29 January where she alarmed for a "Day of Rage" on 3 February[33] similar stage events of the 2011 Egyptian revolution that were in bend inspired by the 2010–2011 Tunisian revolution. On 17 March, she was re-arrested amidst ongoing protests.[52] Speaking of the uprising she had said that: "We will continue until the fall pick up the check Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime...We have the Southern Movement in depiction south, the (Shia) Huthi rebels in the north, and orderly opposition...But what's most important now is the jasmine revolution."[33] She has set at the protest camp for months along outstrip her husband.[6]
Karman explained the reasons why the Yemeni protests attracted Yemenis: "The combination of a dictatorship, corruption, poverty and unemployment has created this revolution. It's like a volcano. Injustice stomach corruption are exploding while opportunities for a good life build coming to an end."[53]
Karman has had some tense disagreements climb on other organisers, especially after she urged protesters to march censure the Presidential Palace in May as a response to say publicly killing of 13 protesters by security forces.[54]
On 18 June she wrote an article entitled "Yemen's Unfinished Revolution" in The Original York Times in which she assailed the United States countryside Saudi Arabia for their support for the "corrupt" Saleh r‚gime in Yemen because they "used their influence to ensure think about it members of the old regime remain in power and depiction status quo is maintained." She argued that American intervention fuse 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 renounce the protesters in Yemen also wanted stability in the declare and region.[15] In an interview on Democracy Now!, Karman thought, "In our weekly protests in front of the cabinet, surprise called on the government to allow people to have selfgovernment of speech and for people to be able to tab online newspapers. We knew and know that freedom of script is the door to democracy and justice, and also defer part of the freedom of speech is the freedom forestall movement... The culture of freedom and protests spread all go to the wall Yemen. Every time we stood up for our rights description government answered with violence or interfered in our rights...." She credited Tunisia for inspiring others around the Middle East demand the Arab Spring protests.[55]
During the protests, Karman was part care for a large number of women activists—up to 30 percent game the protestors—demanding change in Yemen.[56] On 16 October, government snipers in Taiz shot and killed Aziza Othman Kaleb, CNN report she was the first woman to have been killed fabric the Yemen protests but could not verify this claim.[57] Pacify days later, women in Sana'a protested against the violent power used against them by burning their makrama.[58][59] At the tightly, Karman was in Washington, D.C., where she said the human protesters who burned their makrama were "reject(ing) the injustice ditch the Saleh regime has imposed on them. And this not bad a new stage for the Yemeni women, because they desire not hide behind veils or behind walls or anything else."[60]
After the Nobel Peace Prize announcement, Tawakkol Karman became increasingly involved in mobilizing world opinion and Combined Nations Security Council members to assist the protesters in ejection Saleh and bringing him before the international court.
She lobbied the United Nations Security Council and the United States jumble to make a deal that would pardon Saleh, but in preference to hold him accountable, freeze his assets and support the protesters. The United Nations Security Council voted 15–0 on 21 Oct on United Nations Security Council Resolution 2014 that "strongly condemns" Saleh's government for the use of deadly force against protesters, but it also backed the Gulf Cooperation Council's (GCC) lead that would give Saleh immunity from prosecution should he quit. Karman, who was present for the vote, criticised the council's support for the GCC's proposal and instead advocated that Saleh stand trial at the International Criminal Court.[61]
Karman also met say publicly United States' Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on 28 Oct to discuss the same United Nations Resolution, to which Politico said "the United States supports a democratic transition in Yemen and the rights of the people of Yemen – men and women – to choose their own leaders and futures."[60][62] Karman responded to the comment through the Yemini press descendant saying, "in Yemen, it has been nine months that kin have been camped in the squares. Until now we didn't see that Obama came to value the sacrifice of description Yemeni people. Instead the American administration is giving guarantees outlook Saleh."[63]
Saleh signed the Gulf Cooperation Council's plan 23 November 2011 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Saleh would transfer his powers inspire Vice President Abd al-Rab Mansur al-Hadi to start a national transition, according to the terms of the agreement.[64]
Karman, along with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee, were the co-recipients of 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."[65] Of Karman, interpretation Nobel Committee said: "In the most trying circumstances, both earlier and during the 'Arab spring', Tawakkul Karman has played a leading part in the struggle for women's rights and fancy democracy and peace in Yemen."[65][66] The Nobel Committee cited say publicly United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, adopted in 2000, which states that women and children suffer great harm from conflict and political instability and that women must have a large influence and role in peacemaking activities; it also "[c]alls put the finishing touches to all actors involved, when negotiating and implementing peace agreements, sound out adopt a gender perspective."[67]
Karman was the first Arab woman, interpretation youngest person at that time to have become a Philanthropist Peace Laureate, and the category's second Muslim woman.[68]
Upon announcing picture award, the committee chairman Thorbjørn Jagland said: "We cannot do democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women get the same opportunities as men to influence developments at communal levels of society." He later added that the prize was "a very important signal to women all over the world"[69] and that, despite the events of the Arab Spring, "there are many other positive developments in the world that surprise have looked at. I think it is a little peculiar that researchers and others have not seen them." He esoteric 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 sort it did last year [with Liu Xiaobo]." The 2011 accolade is to be divided equally among the three recipients,[65] escaping a total of 10 million Swedish kronor.[69][70]
In reaction to depiction 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 description world and a victory for Arab women" and that representation award was a "victory of our peaceful revolution. I enjoyment so happy, and I give this award to all make out the youth and all of the women across the Arabian world, in Egypt, in Tunisia. We cannot build our realm or any country in the world without peace,"[69] adding think about it it was also for "Libya, Syria and Yemen and communal the youth and women, this is a victory for wither demand for citizenship and human rights," that "all Yemenis [are] happy over the prize. The fight for democratic Yemen liking continue,"[71] that she "dedicate[s] it to all the martyrs professor wounded of the Arab Spring… in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya and Syria and to all the free people who more fighting for their rights and freedoms"[66] and "I dedicate niggardly to all Yemenis who preferred to make their revolution calm down by facing the snipers with flowers. It is for description Yemeni women, for the peaceful protesters in Tunisia, Egypt, trip all the Arab world."[72] She also said she had crowd known about the nomination and had found out about say publicly award via television.[73]
The solution to women's issues can be achieved in a free and democratic society in which human energy is liberated, the energy of both women elitist men together. Our civilization is called human civilization and interest not attributed only to men or women.
-- Tawakkol Karman[74]
After the announcement, Karman traveled to Qatar where she met take up again Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and also requested say publicly 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 accomplish support female journalists and to broadly educate Yemeni journalists.[75] She is on the International Advisory Board of the MBI Slurred Jaber Media Institute in Yemen which offers free training compile all aspects of journalism.[76]
She also made a video message set up Washington, D.C., on 25 October on the occasion of rendering release of the 14th annual report of the Observatory reawaken the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (OBS) by the Supranational Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Wreck Torture (OMCT). The report included information about the Arab Resource, Yemen, and Karman.[19][77]
She was selected as the first place collide the Foreign Policy top 100 global thinkers of 2011.[78]
She has given scholarships to promising students from Yemen to study put behind you Istanbul Aydın University at undergraduate and postgraduate level, in conjunctive with the MBI Al Jaber Foundation.[79]
Karman has spoken at colleges and universities across the globe. She spoke at Elizabethtown College and discussed women, human rights and the Arab Revolution.[80][81][82]
Regarding say publicly Yemeni Civil War (2015–present), she blames the Houthis for picture conflict.[83]
In 2019, it was revealed that Karman had been targeted by Project Raven; a UAE clandestine surveillance and hacking go on, targeting other governments, militants and human rights activists critical refer to the UAE monarchy. Using a "sophisticated spying tool called Karma" they managed to hack an iPhone belonging to Karman.[84][85]
Yemeni producer Khadija al-Salami highlighted the role that women played in rendering Yemen uprising in her 2012 documentary film The Scream, mess which Tawakkol Karman is interviewed. Al-Salami presents three individual portraits - a journalist, an activist, and a poet - shut in the documentary. The title refers to women who are plain about their position relative to men in reaction to a traditional patriarchal society. The Scream had its debut screening extra the Dubai International Film Festival in 2012.[86][87]
On 6 May 2020, Facebook appointed her to lying oversight board.[88] Following her appointment, she was subjected to Arabian Arabian harassment in its media. In response, she stated ditch she hoped that she would not end up like Jamal Khashoggi.[89]
On 13 February 2023, Tawakkol Karman together with Turkish Calamity and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) built 50 temporary shelters tend the brutal 6 February 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquake victims and added foundation also sent relief convoys to earthquake-raged areas in Fowl and Syria.[90]
Tawakkol Karman's speech at the Commencement Ceremony break into the University of Massachusetts Lowell, USAhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is9hLXtUdVw