Showing posts with label Malala. Show all posts

Friday, June 5, 2015

SHOCKING BREAKING NEWS - Eight out of 10 Malala suspects 'secretly acquitted' - BBC

Eight out of 10 Malala suspects 'secretly acquitted'

Malala Yousafzai is pictured before officially opening The Library of Birmingham in Birmingham, central England. (3 Sept 2013) — Malala Yousafzai was seriously injured in a 2012 assassination attempt

Eight of the 10 men reportedly jailed for the attempted assassination of Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai were actually set free, it has emerged.

In April, officials in Pakistan said that 10 Taliban fighters had been found guiltyand received 25-year sentences.

But sources have now confirmed to the BBC that only two of the men who stood trial were convicted.

The secrecy surrounding the trial, which was held behind closed doors, raised suspicions over its validity.

Muneer Ahmed, a spokesman for the Pakistani High Commission in London, said on Friday that the eight men were acquitted because of a lack of evidence.

Saleem Marwat, the district police chief in Swat, Pakistan separately confirmed that only two men had been convicted.

Mr Ahmed claimed that the original court judgement made it clear only two men had been convicted and blamed the confusion on misreporting.

But Sayed Naeem, a public prosecutor in Swat, told Associated Press after the trial: "Each militant got 25 years in jail. It is life in prison for the 10 militants who were tried by an anti-terrorist court." In Pakistan, a life sentence is 25 years.

The acquittals emerged after reporters from the London-based Daily Mirror attempted to locate the 10 convicted men in prisons in Pakistan.

Secret trial

The trial was held at a military facility rather than a court, a Pakistani security source told the BBC, and was shrouded in secrecy. Anti-terrorism trials in Pakistan are not open to the public.

Pakistani authorities did not make the judgement available at any stage, nor did they correct the reports over the past two months that 10 men had been convicted.

The announcement of the convictions in April took many by surprise. No journalists had been made aware that the trial was taking place.

Pakistani authorities did not say when and where the men had been arrested or how they were linked to the attack, or explain the charges against them.

Ms Yousafzai, who is now 17, was targeted by Taliban gunmen while she was travelling home from school in the town of Mingora.

The gunmen boarded a bus and asked for her by name before shooting her in the head.

She was treated for her injuries in the UK and currently lives in Birmingham with her family. They are unable to return to Pakistan because of Taliban death threats.

Ms Yousafzai was targeted after campaigning for education rights for girls. She also wrote an anonymous blog for the BBC's Urdu service, describing life under the Taliban.

Pakistan's mountainous Swat valley, where she lived with her family, was overrun by the Taliban between 2007 and 2009.

Friday, October 10, 2014

Malala and Kailash Satyarthi win Nobel Peace Prize - article, pics, video

Malala and Kailash Satyarthi win Nobel Peace Prize

COMMENTS (157)

Pakistani child education activist Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian child rights campaigner, have jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize.

At the age of just 17, Malala is the youngest recipient of the prize.

The teenager was shot in the head by Taliban gunmen in October 2012 for campaigning for girls' education. She now lives in Birmingham in the UK.

The Nobel committee praised the pair's "struggle against the suppression of children and young people".

Mr Satyarthi, 60, has maintained the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi and headed various forms of peaceful protests, "focusing on the grave exploitation of children for financial gain," the committee said at the announcement in Oslo.

Reacting to the news, Mr Satyarthi told the BBC: "It's a great honour for all the Indians, it's an honour for all those children who have been still living in slavery despite of all the advancement in technology, market and economy.

"And I dedicate this award to all those children in the world."

File picture from 1996 of Kailash Satyarthi shooting a video

Kailash Satyarthi, seen here making a film in 1996, has fought for the rights of child labourers

Thorbjorn Jagland, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, paid tribute to Malala's achievements.

"Despite her youth, Malala Yousafzai, has already fought for several years for the right of girls to education and has shown by example that children and young people too can contribute to improving their own situations," he said.

"This she has done under the most dangerous circumstances. Through her heroic struggle she has become a leading spokesperson for girls' rights to education."

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Thorbjorn Jagland head of Nobel committee, cited Malala's "heroic struggle"

Malala first came to attention in 2009 after she wrote an anonymous diary for BBC Urdu about life under Taliban rule in north-west Pakistan.

She was shot when gunmen boarded her school bus in the Swat Valley.

She has since recovered from the attack and has remained in the public eye, publishing an autobiography and addressing the UN General Assembly.

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Schoolgirls in Islamabad say they "are so very proud" of Malala Yousafzai

Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif congratulated Malala Yousafzai, calling her the "pride" of his country.

"Her achievement is unparalleled and unequalled. Girls and boys of the world should take the lead from her struggle and commitment," he said in a statement.

Malala was named one of Time magazine's most influential people in 2013, and awarded the EU's prestigious Sakharov human rights prize that year.

This year's record number of 278 Nobel Peace Prize nominees included Pope Francis and Congolese gynaecologist Denis Mukwege, although the full list was kept a secret.

Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta had also been tipped as favourites for the award.

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Malala, education and the Taliban apology

Senior Pakistani Taliban leader 'shocked' by Malala attack

A friend of the Yousafzai family told the BBC's Orla Guerin the letter was a confused damage control attempt by the Taliban after Malala's UN speech

A Pakistani Taliban leader has sent a letter to schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, expressing shock that she was shot by Taliban gunmen last year.

The Taliban was universally condemned after gunmen shot Malala in the head.

In his letter to Malala, Adnan Rasheed stops short of apologising but says he wished the attack "had never happened".

He also claims the shooting was not in response to Malala's campaign for girls' education, but because she ran an anti-Taliban "smear campaign".

Malala - who is considered a contender for the Nobel Peace Prize - is credited with bringing the education issue to global attention.

Speaking at UN headquarters in New York last Friday, she said that books and pens scared extremists. She also urged education for all, including "for the sons and daughters of the Taliban and all the terrorists".

Correspondents say Rasheed's letter was an apparent attempt to attract media attention with a view to counter the impact of Malala's speech at the UN.

'Brotherly' emotions

A copy of the letter was obtained by Channel 4 News and other news organisations.

Writing in his "personal capacity", Rasheed said he felt "brotherly" emotions towards Malala because they belong to the "same Yousufzai tribe".

Analysis

M Ilyas KhanBBC News, Islamabad

Adnan Rasheed's "advice" to Malala Yousafzai comes just days after she held the centre-stage at the United Nations last Friday.

Even if he has written the letter in personal capacity, it certainly has the sanction of the TTP - the Pakistani Taliban group that admitted it attempted to assassinate the child activist in 2012.

Mr Rasheed is a former non-commissioned officer of the Pakistan Air Force who was sentenced to death for his role in a 2003 attempt on the life of former military ruler, Pervez Musharraf.

In 2012, the TTP attacked a jail in the north-west of the country, freeing him and hundreds of other prisoners. He has since appeared in some high-profile TTP videos.

The letter is apparently an attempt to attract media attention with a view to counter the impact of Malala's speech at the UN, and to further divide a society where the educated middle class is already in disagreement over whether Ms Yousafzai is a hero or an agent of the West.

However, he refuses to condemn the attack, saying the judgement on whether it was correct or not should be left to God.

Rasheed says he first heard of Malala's work when he was in prison, when the BBC Urdu service broadcast a diary that she wrote.

He says he wished he had been able to "advise" her before the attack, which he describes as an "accident".

The Taliban leader also says that his group is not "against education of any men or women or girls". Instead he claims Malala was targeted because she campaigned to "malign [the Taliban's] efforts to establish the Islamic system".

"You have said in your speech that the pen is mightier than the sword, so they attacked you for your sword, not for your books or school," he writes.

Rasheed finishes by telling Malala to "come back home, adopt the Islamic and Pashtun culture and join any female Islamic madrassa [school], use your pen... and reveal the conspiracy of the tiny elite who want to enslave the whole of humanity".

Malala's family said in a statement that they were aware of the letter but had not received it directly and had no wish to comment on it.

After the shooting, Malala was flown from Pakistan to the UK for treatment, and now lives in Birmingham, England.

Her speech on her 16th birthday at UN headquarters in New York was her first public address since last October's attack.

Malala said she was fighting for the rights of women because "they are the ones who suffer the most".

A quarter of young women around the world have not completed primary school.