38 Facts About Tawakkol Karman

Tawakkol Abdel-Salam Khalid Karman is a Yemeni journalist, politician, and human rights activist.

Tawakkol Karman became the international public face of the 2011 Yemeni uprising that was part of the Arab Spring movement.

Tawakkol Karman is a co-recipient of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for "non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work".

Tawakkol Karman became the first Yemeni, the first Arab woman, and the second Muslim woman to win a Nobel Prize.

Tawakkol Karman was a vocal opponent who called for the end of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime.

Tawakkol Karman was born on 7 February 1979 in Shara'b As Salam, Taiz Governorate, then North Yemen.

Tawakkol Karman grew up near Taiz, the country's second largest city, known for its educational institutions in an otherwise conservative environment.

Tawakkol Karman's father, Abdel Salam Karman, is a lawyer and politician who served as the Legal Affairs Minister in Ali Abdullah Saleh's government before resigning.

Tawakkol Karman has two siblings: Tariq Karman, a poet, and Safa Karman, a lawyer and the first Yemeni to graduate from Harvard Law School.

Tawakkol Karman is married to Mohammed al-Nahmi and is the mother of three children.

Tawakkol Karman holds a master's degree in international security from the University of Massachusetts Lowell, an undergraduate degree in commerce from the University of Science and Technology, and a graduate degree in political science from the University of Sana'a.

In 2012, Tawakkol Karman participated as a panelist in the annual Clinton Global Initiative session titled "Champions of Action".

On 17 December 2020, Tawakkol Karman reported that Houthi rebels raided her home and office, taking control of both locations after looting them.

Tawakkol Karman has said she has received "threats and temptations" and was the target of harassment from the Yemeni authorities by telephone and letter because of her refusal to accept the Ministry of Information's rejection of WJWC's application to legally create a newspaper and a radio station.

From 2007 to 2010, Tawakkol Karman regularly led demonstrations and sit-ins in Tahrir Square, Sana'a.

Tawakkol Karman was affiliated with the Al-Thawrah newspaper at the time she founded WJWC in March 2005.

Tawakkol Karman is a member of the Yemeni Journalists' Syndicate.

In 2019, Tawakkol Karman called for a treaty to end violence against women, in support of Every Woman Coalition.

Tawakkol Karman started protests as an advocate for press freedoms in her country.

Tawakkol Karman stopped wearing the traditional niqab in favour of more colourful hijabs that showed her face.

Tawakkol Karman first appeared without the niqab at a conference in 2004.

Tawakkol 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.

Tawakkol Karman has alleged that many Yemeni girls suffer from malnutrition so that boys could be fed and called attention to high illiteracy rates: two-thirds of Yemeni women are unable to read.

Tawakkol Karman's 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.

Tawakkol Karman attempted to enter Egypt to 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.

Tawakkol Karman later denounced the military's arrests of high-ranking Muslim Brotherhood officials and the military's use of violence on protesters at sites occupied primarily by Morsi's supporters.

Tawakkol 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.

Tawakkol Karman has condemned the groups for what she says are their efforts to destabilize the country and overthrow the Yemeni government.

Tawakkol Karman has accused the Houthis of receiving foreign aid from the Iranian government and objects to what she believes are foreign efforts to leave the Houthis alone since they are fighting against Al-Qaeda.

Tawakkol Karman affirmed that the protesters in Yemen wanted stability in the country and region.

Tawakkol Karman lobbied the United Nations Security Council and the United States not to make a deal that would pardon Saleh, but instead hold him accountable, freeze his assets and support the protesters.

Tawakkol 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.

Tawakkol Karman was the first Arab woman, the youngest person at that time to have become a Nobel Peace Laureate, and the category's second Muslim woman.

Tawakkol Karman is on the International Advisory Board of the MBI Al Jaber Media Institute in Yemen which offers free training in all aspects of journalism.

Tawakkol Karman was selected as the first place of the Foreign Policy top 100 global thinkers of 2011.

Tawakkol Karman has spoken at colleges and universities across the globe.

Tawakkol Karman spoke at Elizabethtown College and discussed women, human rights and the Arab Revolution.

In 2019, it was revealed that Tawakkol Karman had been targeted by Project Raven; a UAE clandestine surveillance and hacking operation, targeting other governments, militants and human rights activists critical of the UAE monarchy.