A 14-year-old human rights activist has been shot in the head for campaigning for female education in Pakistan.
As reported by The New York Times, schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai was shot and seriously wounded in the Swat Valley in northwestern Pakistan, while two others were also shot and suffered smaller injuries.
Yousafzai first came to public attention for writing a diary for BBC in 2009 about life under the Taliban rule, and for speaking out on the restrictions placed on women’s freedom and female education. She was nominated for an international children’s peace award and won the first National award for bravery.
Labelling her human rights campaigning as “obscenity” , the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, after publicly placing Yousafzai on its assassination list earlier this year.
“She has become a symbol of Western culture in the area; she was openly propagating it,” Taliban spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, said by phone from an undisclosed location to the BBC . “She considers Obama as her ideal leader.”
According to The New York Times, Ehsan warned that if she survived, they would try to kill her again. “Let this be a lesson,” he said.
Mustafa Qadri, a Pakistan researcher with Amnesty International, said the attack “highlights the extremely dangerous climate many human rights activists face in northwestern Pakistan, where female activists in particular live under constant threats from the Taliban and other militant groups.”