Tawakel Karman (Nobel Peace Prize Laureate/Activist/Mother/Journalist)

Tawakel Karman (Arabic: توكل كرمان ‎)  (born 7 February 1979) became the international public face of the 2011 Yemeni uprising that is part of the Arab Spring uprisings.

She has been called by Yemenis the "Iron Woman" and "Mother of the Revolution." She is a co-recipient of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, the first Yemeni, the first Arab woman, and the second Muslim woman to win a Nobel Prize. 

She is also the youngest Nobel Peace Laureate to date.

Karman is a Yemeni journalist, politician and senior member of the of Al-Islah political party, and human rights activist who heads the group "Women Journalists Without Chains," which she co-founded in 2005.

She gained prominence in her country after 2005 in her roles as a Yemeni journalist and an advocate for a mobile phone news service denied a license in 2007, after which she led protests for press freedom. She organized weekly protests after May 2007 expanding the issues for reform.

She redirected the Yemini 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 has been a vocal opponent who has called for the end of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime.

Tawakel Karman was born on 7 February 1979 in Mekhlaf, Ta'izz province, Yemen. She grew up near Taiz, which is the third largest city in Yemen and is described as a place of learning in a conservative country.

She is the daughter of Abdel Salam Karman, a lawyer and politician, who once served and later resigned as Legal Affairs Minister in Ali Abdullah Saleh's government; sister of Tariq Karman, who is a poet; and Safa Karman, who works for Al-Jazeera.

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

Karman earned an undergraduate degree in commerce from the University of Science and Technology, Sana'a and a graduate degree in political science from the University of Sana'a.

At a protest in 2010, a woman attempted to stab her with a jambiya but Karman's supporters managed to stop the assault.

According to Tariq Karman, "a senior Yemeni official" threatened his sister Tawakel with death in a telephone call on 26 January 2011 if she continued her public protests. According to Dexter Filkins, writing in The New Yorker, the official was President Saleh.