PRO-MORSI ALLIANCE DENOUNCES YEMENI NOBEL LAUREATE’S DENIAL ENTRY INTO EGYPT
Cairo, 28 Ramadan 1434 / 5 August 2013 (MINA) – A coalition of Islamist parties supportive of ousted President Mohamed Morsi has denounced a decision by Egyptian authorities to deny Yemeni Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkol Karman entry into the country.
“Such practices are a reproduction of the police state that prevailed in the era of [former president Hosni] Mubarak,” The National Alliance for the Defense of Legitimacy (NADL) said in a statement, a copy of which was obtained by Anadolu Agency as monitored by MINA (Mi’raj News Agency).
Earlier Sunday, Karman was denied entry to Egypt following her arrival to Cairo International Airport. Egyptian authorities held her passport for two hours before telling her that she was persona non grata, she said.
Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Ahmed Arif denounced the security forces as well. “This is proof of freedom constrained by the ruling military coup,” he said.
Karman, a journalist, human rights activist and politician, has been an outspoken critic of the army’s ouster of Morsi early last month.
She had reportedly planned to visit Rabaa al-Adawiya Square, the site of an ongoing sit-in by Morsi supporters.
In 2011, Karman, 34, became the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Laureate and the second Muslim woman to win the prestigious prize.
Tawakkol Karman or Tawakel Abdel-Salam Karman was born 7 February 1979. She is a Yemeni journalist, politician and senior member of the of Al-Islah political party, and human rights activist. She leads the group “Women Journalists Without Chains,” which she co-founded in 2005. She became the international public face of the2011 Yemeni uprising that is part of the Arab Spring uprisings.
She has been called the “Iron Woman” and “Mother of the Revolution” by Yemenis. She is a co-recipient of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the first Yemeni, the first Arab woman, and the second Muslim woman to win a Nobel Prize and the youngest Nobel Peace Laureate to date.
Karman 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 Yemeni 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. (T/P03/P04)
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)
