How Tawakkul Karman earned the 2011 Nobel Prize for peace
Tawakel Karman , is a Yemeni politician who is a senior member of Al-Islah[2] and a human rights activist who heads the group Women Journalists Without Chains that she created in 2005. She has been a leading figure in organizing protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh that began in late January as part of a wave of anti-authoritarian revolts that have convulsed the Arab world.
Yemen's Tawakul Karman, the chairwoman of Women Journalists
Tawakel Karman , is a Yemeni politician who is a senior member of Al-Islah[2] and a human rights activist who heads the group Women Journalists Without Chains that she created in 2005. She has been a leading figure in organizing protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh that began in late January as part of a wave of anti-authoritarian revolts that have convulsed the Arab world.
Yemen's Tawakul Karman, the chairwoman of Women Journalists
Without Chains, shouts slogans during an antigovernment protest
in Sana'a, Feb. 10, 2011.
One of her sayings: "We are suffering from a ruler who tries to control the country with constitutional amendments that will change Yemen into a monarchy," she tells TIME. Yemen, like Tunisia and Egypt, needs an end to a dictatorship in the guise of a presidency. Indeed, Ali Abdullah Saleh has been in power since 1978 — one year longer than Mubarak. "The combination of a dictatorship, corruption, poverty and unemployment has created this revolution," she says. "It's like a volcano. Injustice and corruption are exploding while opportunities for a good life are coming to an end."
On her office wall hang portraits of Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. "We refuse violence and know that violence has already caused our country countless problems,"
Karman has been protesting every Tuesday since 2007, but she says watching the dictators in Tunisia, then Egypt, fall has given her, and every one in the protest movement, a renewed energy. "The goal is to change the regime by the slogan we learned from the Tunisian revolution, 'The people want the regime to fall.' We are using the same methods and the same words from the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. They taught us how to become organized."
Tawakul Karman, a 32-year-old mother of three, may seem an unlikely leader of the fight to overthrow the president of Yemen. But the outspoken journalist and human rights activist has long been a thorn in Ali Abdullah Saleh's side, agitating for press freedoms and staging weekly sit-ins to demand the release of political prisoners from jail – a place she has been several times herself.
Now inspired by the uprising in Tunisia and the resignation of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, she finds herself at the head of a popular protest movement which is shaking the Yemeni regime to its core.
"The extremist people hate me. They speak about me in the mosques and pass round leaflets condemning me as un-Islamic. They say I'm trying to take women away from their houses."
Last year, a woman tried to stab her with a jambiya, a traditional Yemeni dagger, at one of the demonstrations. Karman says her crowds of supporters helped her survive the attack.
"I discovered that wearing the veil is not suitable for a woman who wants to work in activism and the public domain," she says.
"People need to see you, to associate and relate to you. It is not stated in my religion to wear the veil; it is a traditional practice so I took it off."
Her advice for women is not to wait for permission before demanding rights: "If you go to the protests now, you will see something you never saw before: hundreds of women. They shout and sing, they even sleep there in tents. This is not just a political revolution, it's a social revolution."
When Karman was detained by security for organising protests on 22 January, she made the most of a bad situation by chatting to her fellow female detainees about their rights. “I was happy to discover the prison and talk to the prisoners,” she told The Yemen Times after her release.
But perhaps the most inspiring thing about Karman is that she is not speaking up only for Yemeni women, but for Yemeni society as a whole, addressing national grievances such as unemployment and corruption.
Although it is rare for Yemeni women to be taken to jail, Karman was arrested at her home on Jan. 23, for leading anti-Saleh protests. After widespread protests against her detention, she was released early the next day.
"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," committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland told reporters. By citing Karman, the committee also appeared to be acknowledging the effects of the Arab Spring, which has challenged authoritarian regimes across the region. Jagland told The Associated Press that Karman's award should be seen as a signal that both women and Islam have important roles to play in the uprisings. "The Arab Spring cannot be successful without including the women in it," Jagland said.
"I give the prize to the youth of revolution in Yemen and the Yemeni people," Karman told The Associated Press.
Sources:
msnbc.com
alweeam.com
TIME
guardian
mideastposts
One of her sayings: "We are suffering from a ruler who tries to control the country with constitutional amendments that will change Yemen into a monarchy," she tells TIME. Yemen, like Tunisia and Egypt, needs an end to a dictatorship in the guise of a presidency. Indeed, Ali Abdullah Saleh has been in power since 1978 — one year longer than Mubarak. "The combination of a dictatorship, corruption, poverty and unemployment has created this revolution," she says. "It's like a volcano. Injustice and corruption are exploding while opportunities for a good life are coming to an end."
On her office wall hang portraits of Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. "We refuse violence and know that violence has already caused our country countless problems,"
Karman has been protesting every Tuesday since 2007, but she says watching the dictators in Tunisia, then Egypt, fall has given her, and every one in the protest movement, a renewed energy. "The goal is to change the regime by the slogan we learned from the Tunisian revolution, 'The people want the regime to fall.' We are using the same methods and the same words from the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. They taught us how to become organized."
Tawakul Karman, a 32-year-old mother of three, may seem an unlikely leader of the fight to overthrow the president of Yemen. But the outspoken journalist and human rights activist has long been a thorn in Ali Abdullah Saleh's side, agitating for press freedoms and staging weekly sit-ins to demand the release of political prisoners from jail – a place she has been several times herself.
Now inspired by the uprising in Tunisia and the resignation of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, she finds herself at the head of a popular protest movement which is shaking the Yemeni regime to its core.
"The extremist people hate me. They speak about me in the mosques and pass round leaflets condemning me as un-Islamic. They say I'm trying to take women away from their houses."
Last year, a woman tried to stab her with a jambiya, a traditional Yemeni dagger, at one of the demonstrations. Karman says her crowds of supporters helped her survive the attack.
"I discovered that wearing the veil is not suitable for a woman who wants to work in activism and the public domain," she says.
"People need to see you, to associate and relate to you. It is not stated in my religion to wear the veil; it is a traditional practice so I took it off."
Her advice for women is not to wait for permission before demanding rights: "If you go to the protests now, you will see something you never saw before: hundreds of women. They shout and sing, they even sleep there in tents. This is not just a political revolution, it's a social revolution."
When Karman was detained by security for organising protests on 22 January, she made the most of a bad situation by chatting to her fellow female detainees about their rights. “I was happy to discover the prison and talk to the prisoners,” she told The Yemen Times after her release.
But perhaps the most inspiring thing about Karman is that she is not speaking up only for Yemeni women, but for Yemeni society as a whole, addressing national grievances such as unemployment and corruption.
Although it is rare for Yemeni women to be taken to jail, Karman was arrested at her home on Jan. 23, for leading anti-Saleh protests. After widespread protests against her detention, she was released early the next day.
"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," committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland told reporters. By citing Karman, the committee also appeared to be acknowledging the effects of the Arab Spring, which has challenged authoritarian regimes across the region. Jagland told The Associated Press that Karman's award should be seen as a signal that both women and Islam have important roles to play in the uprisings. "The Arab Spring cannot be successful without including the women in it," Jagland said.
"I give the prize to the youth of revolution in Yemen and the Yemeni people," Karman told The Associated Press.
Sources:
msnbc.com
alweeam.com
TIME
guardian
mideastposts
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