The Women Calling for Yemen's Spring

​Belquis Al Lahabi 

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2018 OFF in Oslo
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Belquis Al Lahabi is a Yemeni pro-democracy activist and leader of a coalition of civil society organizations. In her talk at the 2018 Oslo Freedom Forum, Al Lahabi describes how youth in her country chose the peaceful route to protest corruption, intimidation, and authoritarianism and shares a moment of silence with the audience in tribute to those Yemeni people whose lives have been lost at war.

About the Speaker

Belquis Al Lahabi

​Belquis

Al Lahabi

Yemeni pro-democracy and women's rights activist

Belquis Al Lahabi is a pro-democracy activist and leader of a coalition of civil society organizations that organized anti-regime protests and sit-ins and played an important role in the 2011 revolution in Yemen. As the uprisings in Tunisia began, she stood in front of the Tunisian embassy in Yemen and called for the fall of President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s authoritarian regime. When Saleh was toppled, she was among the few women that were part of the National Dialogue Conference, a transitional dialogue process held in 2013 as a part of crisis reconciliation efforts in the country. Al Lahabi used this opportunity as a platform to advocate for women’s rights, focusing on issues such as child marriage, maternal mortality, and literacy. In April 2015, after her home was destroyed by an explosion, she fled to Jordan, where she has resided ever since.

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