Yemeni women fight dictatorship

From the New York Times in the USA today:

3 Senior Yemeni Officers Back Antigovernment Protesters

By LAURA KASINOF

Published: March 21, 2011

SANA, Yemen — In an apparent erosion of military support for Yemen‘s embattled president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, three army commanders gave their backing to protesters on Monday. The move came a day after the president fired his cabinet following the deaths of at least 45 people killed by government-linked forces.

Translated from a report by Ellen van Dalen in Dutch daily De Pers:

In Yemen, women now demonstrate as well

Published: yesterday 9:12 p.m.
Update: yesterday 9:33 p.m.

As in Egypt, the popular uprising in Yemen is not an exclusive male domain. Again, women are participating.

“I have a dream” is on the laptop of Tawakkol A. Karman. Karman (32) is a human rights activist and member of the conservative opposition party Islag. After the start of the revolution in Yemen, she has turned increasingly into one of the leaders of the protests against the regime in Yemen. “My dream is that our President Ali Abdullah Saleh quits. He is a criminal, a butcher.”

Every day there are more women demonstrating. Last Friday there were not less than ten thousand in the capital Sanaa. They scream even more loudly than the men that Saleh has got to leave. The bravest women even have a tent on the demonstration grounds. Tawakkol also lives there. Her tent has now become the place where students, tribal leaders and oppositionists meet every day. She placed her children with her ​​mother because she thinks the situation is too dangerous for them.

And not entirely unjustifiedly so. This Friday, the government turned the demonstration shortly before the noon prayer into a massacre. The women were unharmed, but helped as doctors and nurses in the emergency room. To demonstrate as a woman takes courage in this conservative Islamic country. Nadia (19), disguised by her niqab – her veil which covers all- says: “My parents know nothing. When they hear that I’m here, I guess I will have to stay at home forever. ”

One of the first women in the square was Farida (49), she also lives in her tent in between the other demonstrators. “I’ll only leave here when Saleh is also gone, ” she says determinedly.

America’s Saudi air war. A plan to train Saudi air force pilots in Idaho is turning former allies into bitter enemies: here.

EGYPT: Revolutionary Youth Gives Clinton The Cold Shoulder: here.

Egyptian feminist urges us to keep fighting: here.

Egyptian Women Protesters Forced to Take ‘Virginity Tests,’ Says Amnesty International: here.

Former Mubarak minister charged over deaths: Habib al-Adly, former Egyptian interior minister, accused: here.