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Nobel laureate leads speaker roster for 2025 Rotary International convention

Yemeni journalist Tawakkol Karman promotes peace and women’s rights

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The first woman from the Arab world to win the Nobel Peace Prize will address Rotary International’s 2025 convention, which takes place from 21-25 June in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Tawakkol Karman has endured persecution and imprisonment for speaking out in favor of democracy and women’s empowerment.

“In the most trying circumstances, both before and during the Arab Spring, Karman has played a leading part in the struggle for women’s rights and for democracy in Yemen,” said Thorbjørn Jagland, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, announcing the Nobel Prize in 2011. Karman shared the award with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee.

A journalist and human rights activist, Karman organized numerous protests against the repressive regime of Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh from 2007-2011, acquiring the nicknames “mother of the revolution” and “the iron woman.” In 2005 she founded Women Journalists Without Chains, which trains journalists, reports on efforts to silence the media, and promotes women’s rights.

“‘Women’s rights’ means democracy, means freedom of expression, means freedom to choose your ruler,” Karman said at the 2023 Munich Security Conference. She says Western governments have supported anti-revolutionary efforts in the Middle East, undermining democratic movements in the region.

Karman also founded the Peaceful Revolutionary Youth Council. During the Arab Spring movement in the early 2010s, she called for peaceful dialogue rather than violence and worked for reconciliation between Shia and Sunni Muslims. She believes Islam should peacefully coexist with other religions and that it presents no barrier to women’s full participation in every sphere of society.

Time magazine included Karman on a list of 17 of “History’s Most Rebellious Women” and named her one of its 100 Women of the Year in 2011. Foreign Policy magazine has included her among its Top 100 Global Thinkers. The Tawakkol Karman Foundation builds schools, fights poverty, and supports health care in Yemen.

Learn more and register for the 2025 Rotary International convention.

— March 2025

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