14-year-old girl who spoke against Taliban struggles to survive after being shot

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
10/9/2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Pakistani girl won International Children's Peace Prize in 2011 for essay

A 14-year-old Pakistani girl who won international acclaim for an essay speaking out against the brutal repression in her native country is now fighting for her life after being shot in the head and neck by unknown assailants. Two of her friends also suffered injuries, and doctors are now fighting to save all three of their lives.

Malala Yousafzai's blog led her to become the first Pakistani girl nominated for the children's peace prize. She began writing the diary for the BBC when she was just 11 years old.

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LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Malala Yousafzai is currently in an army hospital after a gunman attacked her and two other girls in Peshawar, Pakistan this week. Malala was shot shortly after leaving her school in the Swat region.

Malala was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize last year for a blog she wrote under a pseudonym for the BBC. Malala also won the National Peace Prize in Pakistan and was honored with a school named after her. The teen became an outspoken critic of the Taliban in Pakistan and was a public advocate for peace.

Malala wrote unsparingly about life in the Swat Valley ruled by a local faction of the Pakistani Taliban, who carried out public floggings, hung dead bodies in the streets and banned education for girls.

Her blog led her to become the first Pakistani girl nominated for the children's peace prize. She began writing the diary for the BBC when she was just 11 years old.

In one posting on her BBC blog, she wrote, "My younger brother does not like going to school. He cries while going to school and is jubilant coming back home ... He said that whenever he saw someone he got scared that he might be kidnapped. My brother often prays 'O God bring peace to Swat and if not then bring either the US or China here.'"

In response, the militants added Malala to their hit list last year.

"We wanted to kill her as she was pro-West, she was speaking against Taliban and more important she was calling President Obama as her ideal. She was young but was promoting a Western culture in the Pakhtun populated areas," Ihsanullah Ihsan, the spokesman of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan said. The Taliban had made a plan for killing her a year ago but were waiting for an opportunity, he told NBC News.

Yousafzai was initially treated at the Saidu Sharif Teaching Hospital, in Mingora but was later airlifted to a hospital in the larger city of Peshawar.

According to the local police, some people came in a car and stopped in front of the school and then asked them to identify Malala.

"Since the students already knew about threats to Malala Yousufzai's life, therefore they said they didn't know her," the police officer said. Malala then came out of the school and sat in a school van she was shot.

� 2012, Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.

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Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for January 2013
General Intention: The Faith of Christians. That in this Year of Faith Christians may deepen their knowledge of the mystery of Christ and witness joyfully to the gift of faith in him.
Missionary Intention: Middle Eastern Christians. That the Christian communities of the Middle East, often discriminated against, may receive from the Holy Spirit the strength of fidelity and perseverance.

Keywords: Pakistan, Peace Prize, teen journalist, Malala Yousafzai

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1 - 4 of 4 Comments

Paula Whitworth
7 months ago
I'm so glad Malala's condition is improving. She is so brave and I admire her. I will continue to pray for her and her cause.
greg
8 months ago
These people are cowards and thugs. They are that foolish that they think the rest of the world does not see through their selfish and evil ways. Their day of reckoning is coming and when it does arrive, they will have no recourse but to answer with the same response as usual.....violence and arrogance. God will prevail.
Vinod Sailes
8 months ago
After having witnessed the myriad of instances of crime, criminality, brutality and ruthlessness by Islam and its following, all of which down the ages have been endorsed by ‘Koran’ or ‘Devil’s Footprints’ with countless names of innocent human beings having been made victims of Islamic lust for blood and concupiscence, a New Koran would have already become a reality with the imprint of Satan and his imps. What was originally the ‘Devil’s Foot-prints’ up to the time of Muhammad has got revised after the alleged prophet of doom renewed its look through his own life of lust and concupiscence. Today the new age Islam has given a fresher look to a new Koran or the ‘Devil’s Footprints’ which as revealed through the spate of extremist acts ought to be seen as a new order or dogma for the entire Islamic fold.

There is only one Supreme Power in the entire universe who can decide the fate of man, matter or the universe. Islam has not hitherto produced a bonafide testament that empowers them to act on behalf of the Supreme Being. Flouting the authority of God Almighty only amounts to challenging God or belittling His glory. And consequently, no man or for that matter no finite being has God-ordained power to commit any act of aggressiveness against God’s creation. However, Islam has side-stepped all such norms of a righteous living.

Resorting to extremism, aggressiveness, violence, meting out justice over human beings (as Ayatollah Ruhalla Khomeini of Iran had done), Osama Bin Laden indulged in, Saddam Hussain of Iraq committed, Zarcawi of Iraq did are all grave acts which amount to equating oneself with the Supreme Creator and Good of the entire universe and creation.

Treachery, persecution and highhandedness have always been the forte of Islam. However, in the wake of a renewed wave of carnage and persecution by the present day prophets of doom, there should not exist even a iota of doubt that Satan has let loose hell in the hood of a counterweight under the fashion of ‘Islam’ upon the world to reap a harvest for and on behalf of the dark element namely the Devil. Thus the face of Islam in the wake of a renewed wave of ruthless execution and merciless persecution of innocents must dispel even the remotest of notions that it (Islam) has anything to do with God or Divinity, Truth or Conscience and dogma or purity, except enhancing the prospects for its followers to hanker for luxury and lust.

The followers of Islam are a mass-inert, obtuse and a passive lot who would render the universe a doomed planet unfit for God’s creation, if only it was within their power. They are an extremely odd and satirical people occupying the same planet with people of the same mould or creation, if not of better worth. Yet they live an absurd, irrational and self-righteous life, quite complacent at abiding by their own dictum and laws. Precisely, their narrowing mentality is proving to be burden for the world whereas their attitude is nothing but typical of a world of myth and mystery infused in to the core of Islam by Satan himself.

Satan is no outcome of vain or freak imagination. Rather, he is a stark reality. Satan is an emaciated enigma which survives on divine mercy. Pining for the lost bliss of eternity and burning with jealousy at the giant strides man is making on his own that too without divine assistance. Satan can hardly contain himself to breathe ease in the vicious empire of his own make. And the rock bottom truth is there for all to divine that God Almighty does not provide even a iota of divine assistance to man. The only piece of assistance rendered by God to man is to strictly bar Satan from infringing upon the free will bestowed upon man at the time of his creation. As such, the glorious achievements man has piled up within the archives of many million years are but a result of human intellect and adherence to commitment to God and hard-work. These achievements are the outcome of his appropriate utilization of intellectual faculties and free will bestowed upon him by his Creator. It is this free will to act according to his discretion that will justify God’s own judgment on the last day.
Maria Fernandes
8 months ago
It is indeed wonderful and inspiring to see the courage innocent and young people have as against the adults who do not find it in themselves to be able to stand up and speak out against oppression..be it in any form!

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