Tawakkol Karman quotes - page 2

Tawakkol Karman is a Yemeni journalist, politician, and human rights activist renowned for her leadership in the Arab Spring movement. Frequently called the "Mother of the Revolution," she played a key role in advocating for freedom and democracy in Yemen. She became the first Arab woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts in promoting non-violent change and women's rights. Here are 88 of her quotes:

To begin, I am a citizen of the world. The Earth is my country, and humanity is my nation. This is my motto: What everyone has longed for and will be achieved when all of the people shall also celebrate this prize that every Yemeni, and every Arab, and every human being and every woman has also won beside me.

Tawakkol Karman

So what happens when the regime falls, as it must? We are in the first stage of change in our country, and the feeling among the revolutionaries is that the people of Yemen will find solutions for our problems once the regime has gone, because the regime itself is the cause of most of them. A new Yemen awaits us, with a better future for all.

Tawakkol Karman

If the US and Europe genuinely support the people, as they say, they must not betray our peaceful revolution. It is the expression of the democratic will of the overwhelming majority of the people of Yemen.

Tawakkol Karman

We are confident that our revolution has already succeeded and that the regime of Saleh has in effect, already collapsed.

Tawakkol Karman

I came from Yemen, the country of civilization, the Yemen that was led by two women, and it was one of the greatest countries in the world. We were led by a dictatorship regime, a corrupted regime. This regime was founded in killing others...My country has a lot of poverty, from a lot of diseases, from ignorance. And these are some of the reasons that led us to lead this revolution.

Tawakkol Karman

There is a standalone goal, which is goal number two, on the empowerment of girls and women and achieving gender equality. With regards to violence against women, the panel addresses it at length and in an inclusive way ... We're hoping that this goal and set of targets will put an end into violence and discrimination against women, empower women, and achieve gender equality and justice and for the better development of our world.

Tawakkol Karman

I myself am part of the youth movement. However, after a long discussion, it appears that many of the youth demands and needs, like access to education, jobs, and equitable growth, have been addressed under different goals and targets and youth enjoy the benefits of everything else in the report.

Tawakkol Karman

Requiring governments to make all publicly held information and data available to people - thus giving citizens a powerful tool to expose corruption - is just one aspect of the accountability revolution that can be unleashed if the report's recommendations are implemented in full.

Tawakkol Karman

If you go to the protests now, you will see something you never saw before: hundreds of women. They shout and sing, they even sleep there in tents. This is not just a political revolution, it's a social revolution.

Tawakkol Karman

...The result of burning embassies and treading on flags is the self-same objective these drawings wanted to highlight. It was their intention to say that Muslims are terrorists and their religion is a peril to Western civilization.

Tawakkol Karman

We were against oppression, and then we elevated our struggle to demand our rights. We will go against all the dictators, and not only Saleh in Yemen, so we can spread peace.

Tawakkol Karman

it has now become obvious that most of the state institutions, including the judiciary, the army, the security apparatus and most of the government departments, stood against him [Morsi]. They acted in a co-ordinated manner to foment a crisis aimed at impeding the president and forcing failure on him.

Tawakkol Karman

Over the next three years, governments will have to choose whether or not to adopt this new people-centric framework for development. The temptation for political leaders to retreat to a safer, more conventional approach will mean a strong global grassroots campaign will thus be necessary to build pressure for adoption of these groundbreaking and transformative elements recommended in the report.

Tawakkol Karman

The Egyptian officers informed me that I would be denied entry, and I was soon deported back to Yemen on the same plane on which I had arrived. The authorities gave me no clear answer why: They said that I knew the reason for my deportation better than them, and that my name had been blacklisted based on the request of a security body.

Tawakkol Karman

Morsy was not only Egypt's democratically elected president, he is now emerging as the Arab world's Nelson Mandela...during Morsy's one-year reign, Egypt enjoyed freedom of expression and the right to demonstrate peacefully, and not a single one of his political opponents were jailed.

Tawakkol Karman

Today we need a concerted international effort that would result in freezing the assets of the ruling family, which are estimated at $10bn.

Tawakkol Karman

Perhaps one of the few positive aspects of the coup is that it has discredited the claim that that that the state had been taken over by the Brotherhood under Morsi.

Tawakkol Karman

Democracy can't thrive under military rule - history is quite clear on this point ... The police state is back, and it is even worse than Hosni Mubarak's. What is happening in Egypt today is very scary: The coup could lead society to lose its faith in democracy, which will give terrorist groups a chance to breathe again...By blocking peaceful change and weakening the Islamist groups that participate in the political process, the coup leaders support this stance and do the terrorists a favor.

Tawakkol Karman

The panel put targets, for example, on nutrition, education, ending preventable child deaths, encouraging birth registration, putting an end to violence against girls, and child marriage - all of which, if enacted, will improve the lives of billions of children throughout the world.

Tawakkol Karman

The international community have to create pressure on Saleh. One, they have to establish an international commission so they can investigate the killing that is happening...Without that justice, and if they leave Saleh alone, there will be no security and peace, not only in Yemen and our region, but also around the world.

Tawakkol Karman

The least we desire from the institutions of the free world, and especially the US and the countries of the European Union, is that they appreciate our struggle for freedom. We want them to discharge their responsibilities towards vulnerable people and support them in the face of the cruelty of rulers who continue to kill.

Tawakkol Karman

The extremist people hate me. They speak about me in the mosques and pass round leaflets condemning me as un-Islamic.

Tawakkol Karman