She is a veteran for the rights of girls education in the Swat Valley in Pakistan. She started out at the age of eleven and against the threats and violence, was relentless in her fight. Then yesterday she was shot twice in the head and neck while riding home in her school bus.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed credit for the shooting. They targeted her because she had criticised them and because of her human rights campaign, which these cowards called an "obscenity" and "a symbol of western culture" and further stated that "she considers Barack Obama as her ideal leader". It is they , who are obscene. It is they who are the symbol of all that is degenerate, cruel, brutish and nasty.
Her father ran one of the last schools to defy the Taliban orders to end female education. Girls' education is a rallying cry against the Taliban in the Swat Valley. Schools in other districts had been closed down and so the Taliban were very concerned with her activities, her defiance.
She would not be silenced and Malala Yousafzai, courageously carried on her fight. She had come to notice in 2009, when she anonoymously wrote a blog "I am afraid" for the BBC.The Taliban had swept through the tolerant Swat Valley, imposing their harsh rule. They were later driven out by the Pakistani army, but remained in neighboring areas, from where they carried out their repression and brutality.
She became a powerful voice for children rights and received Pakistan's first National Youth Peace Prize from then Prime Minister, Yousuf Raza Giliani. In 2011 she was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize.. In recents months she led a delegation of children's rights activists sponsored by UNICEF, to politicians in Peshawar, the provincial capital. Obviously, all these activites did not sit well with the Taliban and so they pounced.
"She is our daughter", said Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, in Parliament and urged his countrymen to battle the "mindset" behind such attacks.
Today she is in stable but critical condition. She is fourteen years old.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed credit for the shooting. They targeted her because she had criticised them and because of her human rights campaign, which these cowards called an "obscenity" and "a symbol of western culture" and further stated that "she considers Barack Obama as her ideal leader". It is they , who are obscene. It is they who are the symbol of all that is degenerate, cruel, brutish and nasty.
Her father ran one of the last schools to defy the Taliban orders to end female education. Girls' education is a rallying cry against the Taliban in the Swat Valley. Schools in other districts had been closed down and so the Taliban were very concerned with her activities, her defiance.
She would not be silenced and Malala Yousafzai, courageously carried on her fight. She had come to notice in 2009, when she anonoymously wrote a blog "I am afraid" for the BBC.The Taliban had swept through the tolerant Swat Valley, imposing their harsh rule. They were later driven out by the Pakistani army, but remained in neighboring areas, from where they carried out their repression and brutality.
She became a powerful voice for children rights and received Pakistan's first National Youth Peace Prize from then Prime Minister, Yousuf Raza Giliani. In 2011 she was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize.. In recents months she led a delegation of children's rights activists sponsored by UNICEF, to politicians in Peshawar, the provincial capital. Obviously, all these activites did not sit well with the Taliban and so they pounced.
"She is our daughter", said Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, in Parliament and urged his countrymen to battle the "mindset" behind such attacks.
Today she is in stable but critical condition. She is fourteen years old.
