Tawakkul Karman won the Nobel Peace Prize
SANAA (Yemen): Tawakkul Karman won the Nobel Peace Prize. She is known among Yemenis as “the iron woman” and the “mother of the revolution.” A conservative woman fighting for change in a conservative Muslim and tribal society, Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkul Karman has been the face of the mass uprising against the authoritarian regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The 32-year-old Karman has been an activist for human rights in Yemen for years, but when she was arrested in January, it helped detonate protests by hundreds of thousands demanding the ouster of Saleh and the creation of a democratic government.
When the Nobel announcement was made Friday, Karman was where she has been nearly every day for the past eight months: in a protest tent in Change Square, the roundabout in central Sanaa that has been the symbolic epicenter of the revolt.
“This prize is not for Tawakkul, it is for the whole Yemeni people, for the martyrs, for the cause of standing up to (Saleh) and his gangs. Every tyrant and dictator is upset by this prize because it confronts injustice,” she told The Associated Press from her tent as she received congratulations from other activists.
Karman shares the prize with Liberian President Ellen Sirleaf Johnson and Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee. She is the first Arab woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. With the award, the Nobel committee gave a nod to the Arab Spring, the wave of uprisings that have swept the Middle East, forcing out the leaders of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.
