São Paulo – Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff had a meeting this Wednesday (7th) in Brasília, with the journalist and human rights activist Tawakkol Karman, from Yemen, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year. According to information from the federal government’s blog (Blog do Planalto), they discussed topics such as transparency and social policies. Karman has come to Brazil to attend the 15th International Anticorruption Conference, which started this Tuesday and will end next Saturday (10th) in the federal capital.
According to the official blog, Karman said Brazil could help her country in areas like food security and the reconstruction of its social protection network. Yemen was one of the nations shaken by the Arab Spring. There, as in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, there was a regime change. Former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who had been in power for over 30 years, was forced to resign amidst popular protests and violent clashes between government supporters and opponents.
“Three aspects are very important to us, namely to try and recreate a social protection network, obtain scholarship purses for young Yemenis, and thirdly food security, in which Brazil is known to be a role model. We would like to establish those in Yemen,” said the journalist according to the blog.
Karman champions freedom of press and women’s rights, and since the mid-2000s she has led the Women Journalists Without Chains group, but gained greater international renown for her peaceful participation in Yemen’s popular uprising last year.
Earlier today, Karman met with foreign minister Antonio Patriota. According to information from the Foreign Ministry (Itamaraty), Patriota said the Nobel Prize she won is a tribute to her struggle for equality for Arab women. Karman, in turn, praised Brazil’s support to Palestinian independence and the country’s gender, social, and youth policies, which she said are a model to be replicated by developing nations.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
