Aung San Suu Kyi, opposition leader in Myanmar, became an international symbol of peaceful resistance in the face of oppression as a result of her 15 years under house arrest.
The 70-year-old spent much of her time between 1989 and 2010 in some form of detention because of her efforts to bring democracy to military-ruled Myanmar (Burma).
In 1991, a year after her National League for Democracy (NLD) won an overwhelming victory in an election the junta later nullified, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The committee chairman called her "an outstanding example of the power of the powerless".
She was sidelined for Myanmar's first elections in two decades on 7 November 2010 but released from house arrest six days later.
As the new government embarked on a process of reform, Aung San Suu Kyi - known to many as "The Lady" - and her party rejoined the political process.
On 1 April 2012 she stood for parliament in a by-election, arguing it was what her supporters wanted even if the country's reforms were "not irreversible".
She and her fellow NLD candidates won a landslide victory and weeks later the former political prisoner was sworn into parliament, a move unimaginable before the 2010 polls.
Barred from running
However, Ms Suu Kyi has since been frustrated with the pace of democratic development.
In November 2014, she warned that Myanmar had not made any real reforms in the past two years and warned that the US - which dropped most of its sanctions against the country in 2012 - had been "overly optimistic" in the past.
And in June, a vote in Myanmar's parliament failed to remove the army's veto over constitutional change. Ms Suu Kyi is also barred from running for president because her two sons hold British not Burmese passports - a ruling she says is unfair.
Although her party is popular, Ms Suu Kyi has come in for criticism since her election by some rights groups for what they say has been a failure to speak up for Myanmar's minority groups during a time of ethnic violence in parts of the country.
Political pedigree
Aung San Suu Kyi is the daughter of Myanmar's independence hero, General Aung San.
He was assassinated during the transition period in July 1947, just six months before independence, when Ms Suu Kyi was only two.