Tawakkol Karman

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Lore & Background

Tawakkol Karman was born on 7 February 1979 in Shara'b As Salam, Taiz Governorate, then North Yemen. She grew up near Taiz and studied there. Her father, Abdel Salam Karman, is a lawyer and politician who served as the Legal Affairs 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 Law School. Tawakkol is married to Mohammed al-Nahmi and is the mother of three children. She 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, she received an Honorary Doctorate in International Law from the University of Alberta in Canada. During a protest in 2010, a woman attempted to stab Karman with a jambiya, but her supporters intervened. According to her brother Tariq Karman, she received a death threat from 'a senior Yemeni official' on 26 January 2011, warning her to stop her public protests; journalist Dexter Filkins later identified this official as President Ali Abdullah Saleh in The New Yorker. 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. Like many Yemenis, Karman was forced to leave Yemen after the Houthi takeover of the capital, Sana'a, due to the worsening security situation. From her new home in Istanbul, she continues to speak out against injustices in Yemen, including the war waged by the Saudi-UAE-led coalition and U.S. drone attacks. On 17 December 2020, Karman reported that Houthi rebels raided her home and office, taking control of both locations after looting them.

Reader's Guide

Tawakkol Karman's significance lies in her role as a prominent non-violent activist during the Arab Spring, particularly in Yemen, where she became known as the 'Iron Woman' and 'Mother of the Revolution'. Her Nobel Peace Prize recognized her work for women's safety and participation in peace-building. She co-founded Women Journalists Without Chains in 2005 with seven other female journalists to promote human rights, 'particularly freedom of opinion and expression, and democratic rights'. After the denial of a license for a mobile phone news service in 2007, she led protests. From 2007 to 2010, she regularly led demonstrations and sit-ins in Tahrir Square, Sana'a. In early 2011, she shifted the protests to align with the broader Arab Spring movement, inspired by the Tunisian revolution. She was a vocal opponent who called for the end of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's government. Her activism extended to opposing child marriage—she advocated for laws preventing females younger than 17 from being married—and government corruption. She also criticized the 2013 Egyptian coup, supporting the ousted president Mohamed Morsi as Egypt's first democratically elected leader, and was deported back to Sana'a when she attempted to enter Egypt to join protests against the coup. She routinely speaks out against both the Houthi insurgency and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, calling both threats to Yemen's national sovereignty. Her legacy includes being a symbol of women's rights in the Arab world and a persistent voice against injustice, even after being forced into exile.

Did You Know?

• Karman is the first Yemeni, first Arab woman, and second Muslim woman to win a Nobel Prize.
• During a protest in 2010, a woman attempted to stab Karman with a jambiya, but her supporters intervened and prevented the attack.
• She received a death threat from President Ali Abdullah Saleh on 26 January 2011, warning her to stop her public protests.
• The Turkish government offered her Turkish citizenship, which she received on 11 October 2012, tracing her family origin to Karaman Province in Central Anatolia.
• On 17 December 2020, Houthi rebels raided her home and office, taking control of both locations after looting them.