Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. It is located in the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the north and Oman to the northeast. It shares maritime borders with Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia. Covering 555,000 square kilometres and having a coastline of approximately 2,000 kilometres, Yemen is the second-largest Arab sovereign state on the Arabian Peninsula. Sanaa is its constitutionally stated capital and largest city. The country's population is estimated to be 34.7 million as of 2023. Yemen is a member of the Arab League, the United Nations, the Non-Aligned Movement and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
In Arab culture, a Majlis-ash-Shura is an advisory council or consultative council. In Islamic context, the Majlis-ash-Shura is one of two ways that a khalifa may be selected, the other way being by nomination.
Jiblah is a town in south-western Yemen, c. eight kilometres (5.0 mi) south, south-west of Ibb in the governorate of the same name. It is located at the elevation of around 2,200 metres, near Jabal At-Taʿkar. The town and its surroundings were added to the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List due to its purported universal cultural value. By 2019 Jiblah University for medical and health science was established in the center of the town of Jiblah. The historical Palace of Queen Arwa is located in the town.
Sana'a University was established in 1970 as the first and the primary university in the Yemen Arab Republic, now the Republic of Yemen. It is located in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, and is currently organized with 17 faculties. Previously the university was located at 15°20′53.16″N44°11′26.83″E. The university includes several accommodation buildings for staff and students and is partnered with the Kuwait University Hospital for medical students.
The Houthi insurgency, also known as the Houthi rebellion, the Sa'dah War, or the Sa'dah conflict, was a military rebellion pitting Zaidi Shia Houthis against the Yemeni military that began in Northern Yemen and has since escalated into a full-scale civil war. The conflict was sparked in 2004 by the government's attempt to arrest Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, a Zaidi religious leader of the Houthis and a former parliamentarian on whose head the government had placed a $55,000 bounty.
Women in Yemen have historically been placed at a disadvantage due to their gender, with a highly patriarchal society. Although the government of Yemen has made efforts that will improve the rights of women in Yemen, many cultural and religious norms, along with poor enforcement of this legislation from the Yemeni government, have prevented Yemeni women from having equal rights to men.
The Yemeni Revolution followed the initial stages of the Tunisian Revolution and occurred simultaneously with the 2011 Egyptian revolution and other Arab Spring protests in the Middle East and North Africa. In its early phase, protests in Yemen were initially against unemployment, economic conditions and corruption, as well as against the government's proposals to modify Yemen's constitution. The protesters' demands then escalated to calls for the resignation of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Mass defections from the military, as well as from Saleh's government, effectively rendered much of the country outside of the government's control, and protesters vowed to defy its authority.
Tawakkol Abdel-Salam Khalid Karman is a Yemeni Nobel Laureate, journalist, politician, 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 the 2011 Yemeni uprising that was part of the Arab Spring uprisings. In 2011, she was reportedly called the "Iron Woman" and "Mother of the Revolution" by some 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.
The Yemeni Congregation for Reform, frequently called al-Islah, is a Yemeni Sunni Islamist movement established in 1990 by Abdullah ibn Husayn al-Ahmar, Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, Abdul Majeed al-Zindani, with Ali Saleh's blessing. The first article of Islah basic law defines it as "a popular political organization that seeks reform of all aspects of life on the basis of Islamic principles and teachings".
The following is a timeline of the 2011 Yemeni revolution from January to 2 June 2011. The Yemeni revolution was a series of major protests, political tensions, and armed clashes taking place in Yemen, which began in January 2011, influenced by concurrent protests in the region. Hundreds of protesters, members of armed groups, army soldiers and security personnel were killed, and many more injured, in the largest protests to take place in the South Arabian country for decades.
The following is a timeline of the 2011–2012 Yemeni revolution from 23 September through December 2011. The Yemeni revolution was a series of major protests, political tensions, and armed clashes taking place in Yemen, which began in January 2011 and were influenced by concurrent protests in the region. Hundreds of protesters, members of armed groups, army soldiers and security personnel were killed, and many more injured, in the largest protests to take place in the South Arabian country for decades.
Yemeni peace process refers to the proposals and negotiations to pacify the Yemeni Crisis by arranging a power transfer scheme within the country and later cease-fire attempts within the raging civil war. While initially unsuccessful, the reconciliation efforts resulted with presidential elections, held in Yemen in February 2012. The violence in Yemen, however, continued during the elections and after, culminating in Houthi seizure of power and the ensuing civil war.
Women played a variety of roles in the Arab Spring, but its impact on women and their rights is unclear. The Arab Spring was a series of demonstrations, protests, and civil wars against authoritarian regimes that started in Tunisia and spread to much of the Arab world. The leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen were overthrown; Bahrain has experienced sustained civil disorder, and the protests in Syria have become a civil war. Other Arab countries experienced protests as well.
Atiaf Zaid Al-Wazir is a Yemeni researcher, human rights activist, citizen journalist and blogger and co-founder of the media advocacy group Support Yemen. Al-Wazir lived in Tunis, Tunisia then she is currently in Brussels, Belgium.
The Yemeni civil war is an ongoing multilateral civil war that began in late 2014 mainly between the Rashad al-Alimi-led Presidential Leadership Council and the Mahdi al-Mashat-led Supreme Political Council, along with their supporters and allies. Both claim to constitute the official government of Yemen.
On 26 March 2015, Saudi Arabia, leading a coalition of nine countries from West Asia and North Africa, launched an intervention in Yemen following a request from Yemeni president Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi for military support after his forces were ousted from Sanaʽa by Houthi insurgents during the Yemeni Civil War. Government forces, Houthi rebels, and other armed groups fought after the draft constitution and power-sharing arrangements collapsed, despite progress made by the UN during the political transition at that time. Violence escalated in mid-2014. Houthis and allied insurgents seized control of Sana'a in September 2014 and thereafter. In response, President Hadi asked Saudi Arabia to intervene against the Iranian-backed Houthis.
Jamala al-Baidhani was a Yemeni activist who supported civil rights for women and disabled people. She is the founder of the Al-Tahadi Association for Disabled Females, the first group in Yemen devoted to helping girls with disabilities.
Nadia Abdulaziz Al-Sakkaf is a former Yemeni Minister and politician. She was the editor in chief of the Yemen Times from 2005 until 2014, before becoming Yemen's first female Minister of Information. She fled Yemen in 2015 after the coup and is currently an independent researcher in politics, media, development and gender studies based in the United Kingdom. In 2011, Al-Sakkaf gave a popular TED talk called "See Yemen through my eyes" which had over 3 million views.
Disability in Yemen has been increasing over time, especially because of increased conflict in the area. Disabled people in Yemen face many challenges due to poverty, lack of accessible infrastructure, gender segregation and more. The government of Yemen has passed laws to help protect the rights of disabled people in their country, but not all laws are equally enforced.
Radhya Al-Mutawakel is a human rights defender and the Yemeni co-founder and chairperson of Mwatana Organisation For Human Rights, an independent organisation working to defend and protect human rights in Yemen. Al-Mutawakel and Mwatana's recent work has focused on documenting alleged human rights abuses by all parties to the current conflict in Yemen, including by the United States, the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthi forces. She has briefed the UN Security Council on the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, becoming the first person to do so, and has written widely and appeared in a range of media outlets, including Vice News, the Guardian, and The New Internationalist, talking about human rights violations during the conflict.
