Yemeni Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkol Karman said Turkey stands with people but not dictators, even if it is at its own expense.
Western powers act according their own interests but Turkey supports people even if it is at its own expense, Yemeni human rights activist Tawakkol Karman, the first Arab woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011, said Saturday regarding the Arab Spring.
Speaking at a conference in the Mus Alpaslan University in eastern Turkish province of Mus, Tawakkol Karman said that the military coup in Egypt, which ousted the country's first democratically elected President Mohammad Morsi, wasn’t just against the Muslim Brotherhood but also against the youth movement which started on 25 January.
Karman made a gesture of the Rabaa sign at the conference, which has become the symbol of resistance against the military coup in Egypt.
- “Dreaming the same dream”
People of the Muslim world are “dreaming the same dream,” Karman said. “The dream is about having a democratic, free and humane life,” Karman explained. “I believe these honorable dreamers will topple the Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.”
Karman saluted the audience in Turkish and Kurdish, and said that people succeeded to topple the dictators in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Yemen. “Now they will definitely be able to topple the dictator Assad in Syria. I believe in that.”
Karman underlined that a revolution can’t be in one day or night, but it will take months or years of a long process.
Toppling a dictator is just the beginning, and there will be more steps to take, Karman said.
“Removing the corrupt organizations and corrupt people from the state, inherited from the previous establishment, is an example of those steps,” Karman added.
