Al-Tahrir Square, also known as Al-Tahreer Square or Tahreer Square, is a square in central

Sanaʽa Sanaa, officially the Sanaa Municipality, is the ''de jure'' capital and largest city of Yemen. The city is the capital of the Sanaa Governorate, but is not part of the governorate, as it forms a separate administrative unit. At an elevation o ...

Yemen Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...

. It is located west of the Abbas Mosque and the Sultan Palace Hotel, south of the

National Museum of Yemen The National Museum of Yemen () in Sana'a, Yemen, was founded in 1971 in ''Dar al-Shukr'' (Palace of Gratefulness) which was one of the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen, Yemeni Imam Palaces. It is located near Qubbat al-Mutawakkil Mosque dome in Al- ...

, and north of the Yemen Military Museum. Protests took place here during the

2011 Yemeni uprising The Yemeni revolution (or Yemeni intifada) 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 ea ...

, involving clashes between supporters of President Saleh and his detractors. Tawakel Karman, awarded the 2011

Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish language, Swedish and ) is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the Will and testament, will of Sweden, Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobe ...

, made her headquarters a tent pitched at the Square, where she has led weekly Tuesday protests since 2007. The square was a focal point of the 2014 Yemen protests as part of the

Houthi rebellion The Houthi insurgency, also known as the Houthi rebellion, the Sa'dah Wars, or the Sa'dah conflict, was a rebellion, military rebellion pitting Zaidiyyah, Zaidi Shia Islam, Shia Houthis (though the movement also includes Sunni Islam, Sunnis) aga ...

. On October 9, 2014, a suicide bomb tore through Tahrir Square while

Houthis The Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, is a Zaydism, Zaydi Shia Islamism, Shia Islamist political and military organization that emerged from Yemen in the 1990s. It is predominantly made up of Zaydi Shias, with their namesake leadersh ...

were preparing for a rally. The attack killed 47 people and wounded 75 and has been blamed on

al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula ( or : Tanẓīm Qā‘idat al-Jihād fī Jazīrat al-‘Arab, . Organization of Jihad's Base in the Arabian Peninsula), or AQAP is a Sunni Islam, Sunni Islamic extremism, Islamist militant organization which s ...

. The square has been used by

for

public execution A public execution is a form of capital punishment which "members of the general public may voluntarily attend." This definition excludes the presence of only a small number of witnesses called upon to assure executive accountability. The purpose ...

References

Sanaa {{Yemen-struct-stub