Narges Mohammadi, a jailed Iranian women's rights advocate, has won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize.
In a decision likely to anger Tehran, the award-making committee urged the country to release Ms Mohammadi, who is currently serving multiple sentences in Iran's Evin Prison amounting to about 12 years imprisonment, according to the Front Line Defenders rights organisation, on charges including the spreading of propaganda against the state.
She is one of the nation's leading activists who has campaigned for both women's rights and the abolition of the death penalty.
Hailing Ms Mohammadi as a "freedom fighter", the head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee started her speech by saying, in Farsi, the words for "woman, life, freedom" - one of the slogans of protests against the Iranian government.
"The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize to Narges Mohammadi for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all," Berit Reiss-Andersen said in the citation.
The award also recognised the hundreds of thousands of people who have demonstrated against Iranian discrimination and oppression of women, Ms Reiss-Andersen said.
"Only by embracing equal rights for all can the world achieve the fraternity between nations that (prize founder) Alfred Nobel sought to promote," she said.
amounting to about 12 years imprisonment
Ms Mohammadi is the deputy head of the Defenders of Human Rights Center, a non-governmental organisation led by Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
She is the 19th woman to win the 122-year-old prize and the first since Maria Ressa of the Philippines won the award in 2021 jointly with Russia's Dmitry Muratov.
The Nobel Peace Prize, worth 11 million Swedish krona (€947,100), will be presented in Oslo on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who founded the awards in his 1895 will.
"This prize is first and foremost a recognition of the very important work of a whole movement in Iran, with its undisputed leader, Narges Mohammadi," Ms Reiss-Andersen said.
"If the Iranian authorities make the right decision, they will release her so that she can be present to receive this honour (in December), which is what we primarily hope for."
Ms Mohammadi's win comes just over a year after the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of morality police for allegedly flouting the Islamic Republic's dress code for women.
That provoked nationwide protests, the biggest challenge to Iran's government in years, and was met with a deadly crackdown costing several hundred lives.
Among a stream of tributes from major global bodies, the UN human rights office said the Nobel award highlighted the bravery of Iranian women.
"We've seen their courage and determination in the face of reprisals, intimidation, violence and detention," said its spokesperson Elizabeth Throssell.
"They've been harassed for what they do or don't wear. There are increasingly stringent legal, social and economic measures against them ... they are an inspiration to the world."
Dan Smith, head of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute think tank, said that while the prize could help ease pressure on Iranian dissidents, it would be unlikely to lead to her release.
Iran called the awarding of the prize a "biased and political" action by the Nobel committee.
"We note that the Nobel Peace Committee awarded the Peace Prize to a person who was convicted of repeated violations of laws and criminal acts," Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said in a statement.
"We condemn this biased and political move."
