The 17-year-old Ms Yousafzai, the youngest ever Nobel winner, and Mr Satyarthi, 60, collected the award at a ceremony in Oslo City Hall in the Norwegian capital to a standing ovation. As she received her award, a young man ran on to the stage waving a Mexican flag that he had apparently smuggled into the heavily guarded ceremony, and he was whisked away by a guard.
Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg bemoaned the brief interruption and lapse in security. To help protect Ms Yousafzai – who had been shot in the head by Taliban extremists in Pakistan in 2012 – Oslo has been dominated by armed police and security guards for days, with blocked-off streets, metal fences and helicopters whirring above.
In his speech to an audience including Norwegian royalty and politicians, Nobel committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland said all children have a right to childhood and education, and “this world conscience can find no better expression” than through this year’s winners.
Referring to Ms Yousafzai’s serious injury in Pakistan two years ago, he said Islamic extremist groups dislike knowledge because it is a condition for freedom. “Attendance at school, especially by girls, deprives such forces from power,” he said.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai displays her medal (Getty)He praised Mr Satyarthi’s vision of ending child labour and how he had abandoned a career as an electrical engineer in 1980 to fight for that vision.
Mr Jagland also singled out another Indian, Mahatma Gandhi, who remains the most notable omission in the 113-year history of the Nobel Peace Prize. The chairman said prize winners live according to Gandhi’s principle: “There are many purposes I would have died for. There are no purposes I would have killed for.”
In his acceptance speech, Mr Satyarthi referred to rapid globalisation, high-speed internet and international flights that connect people. “But there is one serious disconnect. It is a lack of compassion,” he said, urging the audience to “globalise compassion”, starting with children.
Ms Yousafzai’s parents sat in the front row of the hall holding hands, and she thanked them for their unconditional love. “Thank you to my father for not clipping my wings and for letting me fly,” she said. “Thank you to my mother for inspiring me to be patient and to always speak the truth – which we strongly believe is the real message of Islam.”
Earlier, the flag-waving youth who interrupted the ceremony had shaken Ms Yousafzai’s hand in the Grand Hotel, where she was staying, telling her how much he admired her.
The other awards – in medicine, physics, chemistry and literature – were presented in Stockholm yesterday. The ceremonies are always held on 10 December, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896.
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