Ebadi has emerged as one of Iran's most prominent pro-reform activists, spearheading a drive for rights for women and children. She has also defended dissidents that few other lawyers would dare to touch, but she denies any political ambitions.

Ebadi made headlines when she became the country's first female judge in 1974. But she was stripped of her post when the new ruling clerics decided that women were by nature unsuitable for such responsibilities.

Rather than retire to a life of obscurity or flee overseas like many others who had held high-profile functions under the regime of the ousted Shah, Ebadi stayed in Iran.

At the heart of Ebadi's battle is that under the Islamic law imposed in Iran after the 1979 revolution, a woman is considered to be worth half a man. For example, "blood money" -- compensation for an injury or death -- for an Iranian women is half that for a man.

But it was investigating one of Islamic Iran's most controversial cases -- the 1999 serial murders of writers, intellectuals and dissidents -- that put her on a collision course with Iran's hardliners.

She served as lawyer for a couple who were among several dissidents murdered in a spate of grisly killings that were eventually pinned on "rogue" agents from Iran's intelligence ministry.

In June 2000, she was jailed for three weeks, and then a closed-door court handed her a suspended prison sentence of five years and barred her from practicing law.

The Nobel Committee recognized Ebadi "for her efforts for democracy and human rights" with a purse of 1.1 million euros (1.3 million dollars). Ebadi was selected from 165 candidates, among them Pope John Paul II and former Czech president Vaclav Havel.

At the risk of enraging her critics further, Ebadi pledged to attend Wednesday's presentation ceremony without a headscarf, which is mandatory according to her country's laws for Iranian women, even when travelling abroad.

"My actions have always irritated some people, but that is not important," Ebadi told AFP earlier this month. "I want Iranian women to be free to wear or not to wear the hejab."

But at home Wednesday Islamic hardliners warned that she would have to pay for her decision to appear in public overseas without a headscarf and for allegedly shaking the hand of a man in Tehran.

Last week around 50 hardliners stopped her giving a speech at Al-Zahra women's university, and conservative newspapers have compared her to Iaraeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the exiled opposition People's Mujahedeen.

Pursuing a struggle for human rights in Iran entails constant fear, but, she said in a 1999 interview to the Christian Science Monitor: "I have learned to overcome my fear."

Iran's reformist government declared it was "happy" with Ebadi receiving the honour but President Mohammad Khatami later dismissed the award as "not important."

The Nobel Committee said in a statement, "Both in her research and as an activist, she is known for promoting peaceful, democratic solutions to serious problems in society. She takes an active part in the public debate and is well-known and admired by the general public in her country for her defence in court of victims of the conservative faction's attack on freedom of speech and political freedom.

"Ebadi is an activist for refugee rights, as well as those of women and children. She is the founder and leader of the Association for Support of Children's Rights in Iran. Ebadi has written a number of academic books and articles focused on human rights."

"I hope the people who do not approve of her will now reconsider their position," Sharbanou Amani, one of 13 women MPs in the Iranian parliament, told AFP when she was awarded the prize in October.

She said Ebadi's win was a "matter of pride for Iran's intellectuals."

The Nobel Committee said part of the reason it chose Ebadi was because of its tradition of provoking certain countries to "speed up" the process of human rights and democracy in areas of the world. As a Mulsim woman, Ebadi defied the odds of winning the award, which have been stacked in favor of American or European men.

Ebadi's work has also won her accolades from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and in 2001 she was awarded the human rights Rafto prize. She is married and has two daughters, aged 20 and 23.

All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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