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Nobel Peace Prize Laureates

December 10, 2011 by · Comments Off on Nobel Peace Prize Laureates 

Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkul Karman says she believes the pro-democracy revolts that have swept the Arab world will help “drive out” al-Qaida terrorists.

Karman told The Associated Press on the eve of Saturday’s award ceremony that the autocratic leaders that were toppled from Tunisia to her native Yemen created an environment where extremism could grow.

“When there is dictatorship, you will find extremism and you will find t*rror*sm,” said Karman, a female icon of the protest movement in Yemen. “I am so confident that these peaceful revolutions and new governments in the Arab region and the rest of the world will drive out t*rror*sm.”

A 32-year-old journalist and member of the Islamic party Islah, Karman is the first Arab woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She shared it with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and women’s rights campaigner Leymah Gbowee.

The peace prize committee recognized the three women for championing women’s rights in regions where oppression is common and helping women participate in peace-building.

Karman, who also heads the human rights group Women Journalists without Chains, said she’s not worried that conservative Islamist parties would roll back women’s rights, and she expects women in Yemen to hold top political offices, including that of president, “in the near future.”

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