'The mother of Yemen's revolution,' when asked about her Hijab by journalists and how it is not proportionate with her level of intellect and education, replied: “Man in early times was almost naked, and as his intellect evolved he started wearing clothes. What I am today and what I’m wearing represents the highest level of thought and civilization that man has achieved, and is not regressive. It’s the removal of clothes again that is a regression back to the ancient times"
Karman is the Nobel Peace Prize Winner Yemeni journalist, politician and senior member of the of Al-Islah political party, and human rights activist who heads the group "Women Journalists Without Chains," which she co-founded in 2005. She gained prominence in her country after 2005 in her roles as a Yemeni journalist and an advocate for a mobile phone news service denied a license in 2007, after which she led protests for press freedom. She redirected the Yemeni protests to support the "Jasmine Revolution," as she calls the Arab Spring, after the Tunisian people overthrew the government of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011. She has been a vocal opponent who has called for the end of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime.
She is a co-recipient of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the first Yemeni, the first Arab, and the second Muslim woman to win a Nobel Prize and the youngest Nobel Peace Laureate to date. She has been called by Yemenis the "Iron Woman" and "Mother of the Revolution".
Tawakkul Karman was born on 7 February 1979 in Mekhlaf, Ta'izz province, Yemen. She grew up near Taiz, which is the third largest city in Yemen and is described as a place of learning in a conservative country. She is the daughter of Abdel Salam Karman, 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, a poet, and Safa Karman, who works for Al-Jazeera. She is married to Mohammed al-Nahmi and is the mother of three children.
Karman earned an undergraduate degree in commerce from the University of Science and Technology, Sana'a and a graduate degree in political science from the University of Sana'a.
At a protest in 2010, a woman attempted to stab her with a jambiya but Karman's supporters managed to stop the assault.
According to Tariq Karman, "a senior Yemeni official" threatened his sister Tawakkol with death in a telephone call on 26 January 2011 if she continued her public protests. According to Dexter Filkins, writing in The New Yorker, the official was President Saleh.
Karman claims that her family originated from Anatolia and in a place known as Karaman, which is located in modern Turkey. The Turkish government offered her Turkish citizenship and she accepted her additional citizenship documents from the foreign minister 11 October 2012.
Karman started protests as an advocate for press freedoms in her country. At a time when she was advocating for more press freedom, she responded to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad(PBUH) cartoons controversy in 2005 by writing: "We are not to call for tyranny and bans on freedom."
She stopped wearing the traditional niqab in favour of more colourful hijabs that showed her face. She first appeared without the niqab at a conference in 2004. 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. She told the Yemen Times in 2010 that:
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.
She has alleged that many Yemeni girls suffer from malnutrition so that boys could be fed and also called attention to high illiteracy rates, which includes two-thirds of Yemeni women. She has advocated for laws that would prevent females younger than 17 from being married.
Karman took a different stand on marriage law than others in the Al-Islah party but she claims it is the party most open to women. In clarifying her position, she said:
Our party needs the youth but the youth also need the parties to help them organise. Neither will succeed in overthrowing this regime without the other. We don't want the international community to label our revolution an Islamic one.
She has also led protests against government corruption. Her stand on the ouster of Saleh became stronger after village lands of families around the city of Ibb were appropriated by a corrupt local leader.
She is a moderate in a political party with more conservative members who have formed a coalition to oppose Saleh and the status quo.
Her membership in Al-Islah is controversial because of Abdul Majeed al-Zindani's membership in the same party. Zindani was the head of the Yemeni Muslim Brotherhood and is currently the head of the Salafi wing of the party, which has taken more conservative stances on women and marriage. He is also listed on the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control's Specially Designated Nationals List, a list which the U.S. has used to prevent money from being transferred from charities or businesses to terrorist groups. Zindani has long been associated with Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed by a U.S. Hellfire missile fired in a drone attack 30 September 2011. The United States linked Awlaki to terrorist attacks and Al-Qaeda. Yemeni journalist Nasir Arrabayee reported that the last three locations where sources said Awlaki had visited were either the home of a relative or the homes of Al-Islah members, including the home of Zindani.
She is a co-recipient of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the first Yemeni, the first Arab, and the second Muslim woman to win a Nobel Prize and the youngest Nobel Peace Laureate to date. She has been called by Yemenis the "Iron Woman" and "Mother of the Revolution".
Tawakkul Karman was born on 7 February 1979 in Mekhlaf, Ta'izz province, Yemen. She grew up near Taiz, which is the third largest city in Yemen and is described as a place of learning in a conservative country. She is the daughter of Abdel Salam Karman, 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, a poet, and Safa Karman, who works for Al-Jazeera. She is married to Mohammed al-Nahmi and is the mother of three children.
Karman earned an undergraduate degree in commerce from the University of Science and Technology, Sana'a and a graduate degree in political science from the University of Sana'a.
At a protest in 2010, a woman attempted to stab her with a jambiya but Karman's supporters managed to stop the assault.
According to Tariq Karman, "a senior Yemeni official" threatened his sister Tawakkol with death in a telephone call on 26 January 2011 if she continued her public protests. According to Dexter Filkins, writing in The New Yorker, the official was President Saleh.
Karman claims that her family originated from Anatolia and in a place known as Karaman, which is located in modern Turkey. The Turkish government offered her Turkish citizenship and she accepted her additional citizenship documents from the foreign minister 11 October 2012.
Karman started protests as an advocate for press freedoms in her country. At a time when she was advocating for more press freedom, she responded to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad(PBUH) cartoons controversy in 2005 by writing: "We are not to call for tyranny and bans on freedom."
She stopped wearing the traditional niqab in favour of more colourful hijabs that showed her face. She first appeared without the niqab at a conference in 2004. 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. She told the Yemen Times in 2010 that:
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.
She has alleged that many Yemeni girls suffer from malnutrition so that boys could be fed and also called attention to high illiteracy rates, which includes two-thirds of Yemeni women. She has advocated for laws that would prevent females younger than 17 from being married.
Karman took a different stand on marriage law than others in the Al-Islah party but she claims it is the party most open to women. In clarifying her position, she said:
Our party needs the youth but the youth also need the parties to help them organise. Neither will succeed in overthrowing this regime without the other. We don't want the international community to label our revolution an Islamic one.
She has also led protests against government corruption. Her stand on the ouster of Saleh became stronger after village lands of families around the city of Ibb were appropriated by a corrupt local leader.
She is a moderate in a political party with more conservative members who have formed a coalition to oppose Saleh and the status quo.
Her membership in Al-Islah is controversial because of Abdul Majeed al-Zindani's membership in the same party. Zindani was the head of the Yemeni Muslim Brotherhood and is currently the head of the Salafi wing of the party, which has taken more conservative stances on women and marriage. He is also listed on the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control's Specially Designated Nationals List, a list which the U.S. has used to prevent money from being transferred from charities or businesses to terrorist groups. Zindani has long been associated with Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed by a U.S. Hellfire missile fired in a drone attack 30 September 2011. The United States linked Awlaki to terrorist attacks and Al-Qaeda. Yemeni journalist Nasir Arrabayee reported that the last three locations where sources said Awlaki had visited were either the home of a relative or the homes of Al-Islah members, including the home of Zindani.
