The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2011 is to be divided in three equal parts between Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work. We cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women obtain the same opportunities as men to influence developments at all levels of society.
In October 2000, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1325. The resolution for the first time made violence against women in armed conflict an international security issue. It underlined the need for women to become participants on an equal footing with men in peace processes and in peace work in general.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is Africa’s first democratically elected female president. Since her inauguration in 2006, she has contributed to securing peace in Liberia, to promoting economic and social development, and to strengthening the position of women. Leymah Gbowee mobilized and organized women across ethnic and religious dividing lines to bring an end to the long war in Liberia, and to ensure women’s participation in elections. She has since worked to enhance the influence of women in West Africa during and after war. In the most trying circumstances, both before and during the “Arab spring”, Tawakkul Karman has played a leading part in the struggle for women’s rights and for democracy and peace in Yemen.
It is the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s hope that the prize to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman will help to bring an end to the suppression of women that still occurs in many countries, and to realise the great potential for democracy and peace that women can represent.
OSLO, Norway (AP) — The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman of Yemen for their work on women's rights.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee honored the three women "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work."
FILE - In this July 21, 1997 file photo, Liberian presidential candidate Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf speaks to her supporters asking them to keep faith and solidarity while the vote counting from Sunday's presidential election continues, Monrovia, Liberia. Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman of Yemen have won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced Friday, Oct. 7, 2011. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder, File)
"I am very very happy about this prize," said Karman, a 32-year-old mother of three who heads the human rights group Women Journalists without Chains. She has been a leading figure in organizing protests President Ali Abdullah Saleh that kicked off in late January as part of a wave of anti-authoritarian revolts that have convulsed the Arab world.
"I give the prize to the youth of revolution in Yemen and the Yemeni people," Karman told The Associated Press.
Johnson Sirleaf, 72, is a Harvard-trained economist who became Africa's first democratically elected female president in 2005.
She faces a presidential poll this month.
She was seen as a reformer and peacemaker in Liberia when she took office. But recently, opponents in the presidential campaign have accused her of buying votes and using government funds to campaign. Her camp denies the charges.
Liberia was ravaged by civil wars for years until 2003. The country is still struggling to maintain a fragile peace with the help of U.N. peacekeepers.
Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee, organized a group of Christian and Muslim women to challenge Liberia's warlords. In 2009 she won a Profile in Courage Award, an honor named for a 1957 Pulitzer Prize-winning book written by John F. Kennedy, for her work in emboldening women in Liberia.
Karman's father is a former legal affairs minister under Saleh. She is a journalist and member of Islah party, an Islamic party.
"We cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women obtain the same opportunities as men to influence developments at all levels of society," the prize committee said.
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OSLO, Norway (AP) — Arab Spring or European Union? Speculation ahead of the Nobel Peace Prize announcement on Friday is split after cryptic comments by the award committee's chairman.
Thorbjoern Jagland, General Secretary of the Council of Europe and Norwegian chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize award committee gestures during an interview with the Associated Press at his office at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, eastern France, Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2011. Jagland says his panel has already decided on its laureate for this year and he is confident that the selection will be well-received. (AP Photo/Christian Lutz)
Many Nobel watchers have seen the revolutions against autocratic regimes in North Africa and the Middle East as the most likely subject of this year's prize. An American
professor who wrote a guide to nonviolent protests was a bookmaker's favorite Thursday.
But Norway's TV2 expected the prize to go to Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, while remarks by Thorbjoern Jagland, who has led the five-member Norwegian panel
since 2009, have fueled speculation the prize could go to the EU.
Even though Norway is not a member, Jagland is a strong supporter of the 27-nation bloc, which many consider a peace-building project as much as an economic union.
In 1990, Jagland wrote a book titled "My European dream" about European unity following the collapse of the Iron Curtain. Aside from his Nobel duties he serves as
secretary-general of the Council of Europe, a European human rights organization that is separate from the EU.
Jagland told The Associated Press this week that the prize — decided last Friday — would go to something "obvious" that he considered "the most positive development" in the world right now.
On Thursday he told Norwegian newspaper VG that this year's winner "is involved with something that has been important to me my whole life."
In several interviews he's suggested that Norwegian media are looking in the wrong places — and most of them have speculated about the award going to someone linked to the Arab Spring.
The deadline for nominations was Feb. 1, and committee members could add their own suggestions until Feb. 28. Jagland told AP that was "not necessarily" too late for consideration of leaders of the Arab Spring revolutions, which toppled regimes in Tunisia in January and Egypt in February.
But he added "that doesn't mean that the prize goes in that direction, because there are many other positive developments in the world."
The EU, or some institution within it, could be a strong candidate if the committee views the prize as a booster shot, like it had intended with the 2009 award to Barack Obama in the first year of his presidency.
The European debt crisis has put the bloc under heavy pressure, with Greece, Portugal and Ireland needing bailouts from international creditors including other nations in the 17-nation eurozone that uses the common euro currency.
But Sverre Lodgaard, a deputy member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee who didn't take part in its deliberations, told reporters Wednesday that he didn't believe in an EU award because it's a divisive issue in Norway.
Leading Nobel-guesser Kristian Berg Harpviken, the director of the Peace Research Institute in Oslo, also doubted that the EU would get the prize.
His top picks are Egyptian activists Israa Abdel Fattah, Ahmed Maher and the April 6 Youth Movement, a pro-democracy Facebook group they co-founded in 2008.
He also suggested Wael Ghonim, a marketing executive for Google, for re-energizing the protests on Cairo's Tahrir Square after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, and
Tunisian blogger Lina Ben Mhenni who started criticizing the Tunisian regime before the uprising began in December.
Another candidate could be Turkey's Foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Harpviken said, to honor Turkish peace efforts "as a bridge builder between east and west."
Betting site paddypower.com gave the lowest odds Thursday to retired American scholar Gene Sharp, whose writings on nonviolent resistance are believed to have inspired some protesters in the Arab world. The second-lowest odds were given to Afghan human rights activist Sima Samar, a recurring name in Nobel speculation over the years.
Others getting bets include the Russian human rights organization Memorial and its founder Svetlana Gannushkina, and the social networking site Facebook.
Norway's TV2 predicted that Johnson Sirleaf would get the prize for promoting peace, democracy and economic growth in her country and advocating for women's rights at the U.N.
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