Zainab al-Khawaja
| Zainab al-Khawaja | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | 21 October 1983 |
| Movement | Bahraini uprising (2011–present) |
| Spouse(s) | Wafi Almajed |
| Parent(s) |
Abdulhadi al-Khawaja (father) Khadija al-Mousawi (mother) |
| Relatives | Maryam al-Khawaja (sister) |
Zainab Abdulhadi al-Khawaja (Arabic: زينب عبد الهادي الخواجة; born 21 October 1983) is a Bahraini human rights activist, and a participant in the Bahraini uprising. She rose to prominence after posting tweets online about the protests under the name AngryArabiya as well as for protesting her father Abdulhadi Alkhawaja's detention during his hunger strike.
Alkhawaja promotes the Bahraini protest movement internationally via her Twitter feed, written in English. As of February 2012, she had 33,500 followers.
She is married to Wafi Al-Majed, and they have a 2-year-old daughter named Jude. Her father is Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, former president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, and former director of the Middle East-North Africa region for the International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders' Front Line. Her sister's husband Mohammed al-Maskati is the president of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights.
In April 2011, Al-khawaja went on a ten-day hunger strike to protest the arrests of her father, her husband, and her brother-in-law Hussain Ahmad. She stated that though she had a one-year-old daughter, she preferred death to living under the current government: "If my father is going to be killed, I want to die as well.... We've always been taught by my father that dying with dignity is better than living as slaves". She also criticized the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama for "standing behind the dictator".
Along with two other women, she was detained for seven hours on 15 June after trying to hold a sit-in at a United Nations office; having held onto her phone in the detention center, she continued to post updates to her Twitter feed, such as, "I think the UN might have misunderstood, we wanted the release of political prisoners, not to join them ;)". Commenting later on the arrest, Alkhawaja stated, "Our goal was never to get home safe, but to get protection for all political prisoners in Bahrain."
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