OSLO: The Nobel Peace Prize went Friday to 17-year-old Pakistani Malala Yousafzai and India’s Kailash Satyarthi for their work promoting children’s rights.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the prize saying that peaceful global development can only come about if children and the young are respected.
Malala is the youngest person to be awarded the globally prestigious annual prize. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has congratulated teenage education campaigner Malala Yousafzai on winning the Nobel Peace Prize, calling her the “pride” of hiscountry.
“She is (the) pride of Pakistan. She has made her countrymen proud. Her achievement is unparallelled and unequalled. Girls and boys of the world should take the lead
from her struggle and commitment,” he said in astatement.
A number of congratulatory messages came pouring in as soon as the announcement of her win was made. The messages can beviewed here.
“The Nobel Committee regards it as an important point for a Hindu and a Muslim, an Indian and a Pakistani, to join in a common struggle for education and against extremism,” the Nobel committeesaid in a press release which canbe viewed here.
“The Norwegian Nobel Committeehas decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2014 is to be awarded to Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education,” the jury said. The chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee ThorbjornJagland, announces
that education activist Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi, Indian anti-child labour activist have been awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize 2014 at the Nobel Institute in Oslo on October 10, 2014. PHOTO:
AFP Malala Yousafzai — who survived being shot in the head by the Taliban in 2012 — was recognised for fighting for years for the right of girls to education, showing by example that children can contribute to improving their own situations. “This she has done under the most dangerous circumstances,” the committee said. “Through her heroic struggle she has become a leading spokespersonfor girls’ rights to education.”
It also said that the prize recognised work by Satyarthi to head various forms of protestsand demonstrations, all peaceful,focusing on the grave exploitationof children for financial gain. “Children must go to school andnot be financially exploited,” thecommittee said. “In conflict-ridden areas inparticular, the violation of children
leads to the continuation of violence from generation to
generation.”
She is the second Pakistani tobecome a Nobel laureate after Abdus Salam who also shared the prize in 1979 with US nominee Steven Weinberg for physics. On July 12, 2013, Malala gave a powerful speech at the UN which
can be viewed here .
There was no clear frontrunner ahead of Friday’s Nobel PeacePrize announcement, with a
Russian opposition newspaper, Tunisia’s democratic leadership, Pakistan schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai and Pope Francis among a record number of candidates.
As in previous years, the chairman
of the Norwegian Nobel Committee,
Thorbjoern Jagland, will reveal the
laureate’s name at 0900 GMT at the
Nobel Institute in Oslo. The Nobel committee considered a record 278 candidates, but only those made public by their sponsors have been named.
The Nobel committee’s deliberations continued almost until the last minute and a decision wasn’t reached until last week, public broadcaster NRK reported.
The broadcaster, which sometimes
but not always has been able to
predict the winner, wrote on its
website that Tunisia’s powerful
UGTT workers union and President
Moncef Marzouki were among this
year’s favourites.
“Union can beat out Malala
tomorrow,” it wrote on its website.
The UGTT was nominated for its
role in Tunisia’s democratic
transition, brokering political
negotiations that resulted in a post-
revolution constitution being
signed.
Marzouki, a secular ally of the
moderate party Ennahda, was
chosen as president in Tunisia’s
first election since dictator Zine El
Abidine was toppled in 2011.
Pundits have also suggested that
individuals or groups from the
Russian opposition could be a
popular choice for the Nobel
Committee.
“Russia’s policy in Ukraine,
annexing Crimea and questioning
borders, but also the way the
Kremlin treats dissenters cannot be
ignored by the Nobel committee,”
said Antoine Jacob, author of a
history of the Nobel prizes.
For the Nobel committee president
Thorbjoern Jagland, “sanctioning
Moscow would… be a way to prove
that he acts independently, since
(Jagland) is (also) the Secretary
General of the Council of Europe,
which counts Russia as a member,”
Jacob told AFP.
Co-founded by Mikhail Gorbachev
in 1993 with part of his peace prize
money, the pro-democracy Moscow
newspaper Novaya Gazeta has
been tipped as a possible laureate.
It is one of the few independent
media outlets left in Russia and has
seen several of its journalists
murdered, including Anna
Politkovskaya who exposed huge
human rights abuses in Chechnya.
Pope Francis has become a
bookmakers’ favourite for speaking
out on poverty.
“Today everything comes under the
laws of competition and the
survival of the fittest, where the
powerful feed upon the powerless,”
the first Latin American pope
argued in an exhortation last year.
Experts have cited Edward
Snowden, the former intelligence
analyst who revealed the extent of
US global eavesdropping, as an
outside candidate.
However, most experts say he
would be a controversial choice for
the 878,000-euro ($1.11-million)
award. Pakistani girls’ education
campaigner Malala Yousafzai, a
favourite last year, is once again
being mentioned by observers
although many say her young age
makes her a somewhat less likely
choice for the committee.
It could also increase the terror
threat against the 17-year-old, who
pushed Nigerian president
Goodluck Jonathan to meet with
the parents of hundreds of girls
who were kidnapped by the
Islamist group Boko Haram.
Kristian Berg Harpviken, director
of the Peace Research Institute Oslo
(PRIO), a leading peace prize
analyst and one of the few to
publish a shortlist, put the peace
group Japanese People Who
Conserve Article 9 — which wants
to maintain the Asian country’s
anti-war constitution — in first
place.
“We may have come to think of
wars between states as virtually
extinct after the end of the Cold
War, but events in Ukraine and
simmering tensions in East Asia
remind us they may reappear,” he
wrote.
Among the other main contenders
was favourites were Congolese
doctor Denis Mukwege, also tipped
last year, who has treated female
victims of sexual violence for the
last 25 years, and the human rights
activist Ales Bialiatski from
Belarus, who was released from
prison by the Russian-backed
dictatorship in June.
Source: http://tribune.com.pk/story/773258/malala-yousafzai-shares-nobel-peace-prize-with-indian-activist/
