Earlier today, Pakistani Taliban members claimed responsibility for wounding 14-year old teenage activist, Malala Yousafzai, known for her outspoken criticism of Taliban atrocities. On her way home from school Tuesday, Yousafzai was shot in the head after two men approached her school van.
In early 2009, under a pen name, Yousafzai published a diary for the BBC that highlighted the Taliban ban against girl’s education in the northwest Swat district of Pakistan. Yousafzai was awarded a cash prize and an award for her courageous peace work to raise awareness by the Pakistani government in 2011. In that same year, Yousafzai was also nominated for an International Children’s Peace Price.
In response to the shooting, Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf addressed the Pakistani Senate saying, “We have to fight the mind-set that is involved in this. We have to condemn it. . . Malala is like my daughter and yours, too. If that mind-set prevails, then whose daughter would be safe?”
This news comes months after a Hanifa Safi, a provincial head of women’s affairs, was assassinated in a car bombing. Additionally, over 160 Afghan schoolgirls were targets of a poisoning attack in early May. The Taliban failed to claim responsibility in both acts.
Media Resources: Washington Post 10/9/12; BBC News 01/19/09; BBC News 10/9/12; Feminist Newswire 07/13/12; Feminist Newswire 05/29/12
1 comment
D'Arcy says:
Oct 10, 2012
Yesterday a movie entitled “Chasing Freedom” with Juliette Lewis playing a lawyer, aired on Ontario TV…it showed the sanctioned,premeditated,systemic and pervasive violence/murder against women…by the Taliban. Shocking pictures of a stadium where a planned execution (women shot in the head while bystanders did nothing)took place illustrated the extreme terrorism on women and girls under their unbearable control. When a women shows any independance it is seen as “misbehaviour” against the Taliban and “like a dog they punish the owner”, her male owner (remember she is the property of men withiout any human rights. So not only is she beaten, has acid thrown in her face, is poisoned, stoned to death or shot, her husband or brother is taken away and beaten..This results in her inability to leave the house and she is isolated and under seige..She cannot get an education or work and is forced to beg for food for her children. If that is not enough she is bribed to pay off the money it cost to discipline her. As women are seen as men’s property any act of independance is seen as shaming the family and an honour killing is justified in their minds and laws.
Today the Prime Minister of Australia spoke publically in parliament against the sexism and misogany of women…Is there a petition to stop vilolence against women in this our so called civilized world???