Born: 7 February 1979, Yemen
Died: NA
Country most active: Yemen
Also known as: Arabic: توكل عبد السلام خالد كرمان Tawakkul ‘Abd us-Salām Khalid Karmān; also romanized Tawakul, Tawakel
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Tawakkol Karman is a Yemeni journalist, politician, and human rights activist. Karman rose to prominence in Yemen starting in 2005 as a journalist and an advocate for a mobile phone news service that was denied a license in 2007, after which she led protests for press freedom. She later expanded her activist organising into other issues for reform. She leads the human rights group “Women Journalists Without Chains,” which she co-founded in 2005. She became the international public face of the 2011 Yemeni uprising that was part of the Arab Spring and has been called the “Iron Woman” and “Mother of the Revolution” by Yemenis. 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 was a vocal opponent who 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 woman, and the second Muslim woman to win a Nobel Prize and the second youngest Nobel Peace Laureate to date. Karman, along with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee, were the co-recipients of the Prize “for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.” Of Karman, the Nobel Committee stated, “In the most trying circumstances, both before and during the ‘Arab spring’, Tawakkul Karman has played a leading part in the struggle for women’s rights and for democracy and peace in Yemen.”