They were the first women to win the prize since Kenya’s Wangari Maathai, who died last month, was named as the laureate in 2004.

Most of the recipients in the award’s 110-year history have been men and Friday’s decision seemed designed to give impetus to the cause for women’s rights around the world.

“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”, said the citation read by Thorbjorn Jagland, a former Norwegian prime minister who heads the Oslo-based Nobel committee that chooses the winner of the $1.5 million prize.

In a subsequent interview, he described the prize as “a very important signal to women all over the world”.

Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf is nearing the end of a heated re-election campaign and Monrovia, the Liberian capital, saw her opponents join a big rally before Tuesday’s vote. Mr. Jagland said the election had not influenced the committee’s decision, calling the ballot there a “domestic consideration”. Analysts in Liberia have described the president’s re-election prospects as uncertain, although Friday’s announcement from Oslo could change that. But the Nobel committee’s decision underscored the gap between local perceptions of her — it is not hard to find critics of the president in Liberia — and the view from abroad.

In Yemen on Friday, Ms. Karman, 32, sat in a tent where she has been living since February as part of the sit-in organized to press demands for change. “This is the victory of our peaceful revolution”, she said. “I am so happy and I give this award to all of the youth and all of the women across the Arab world, in Egypt, in Tunisia”.

(Source: The New York Times)
Further details