Pakistani Taliban claiming responsibility for the shooting of a 14-year-old
10/11/2012 13:01
October 10, 2012
The Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for the shooting of a 14-year-old Pakistani blogger.
Malala Yousufzai has been blogging against the Taliban. The gunmen stopped a van that was driving Yousufzai and two other girls home from school. The men asked which girl was Malala and then began to open fire. Yousufzai is in stable condition but the bullet is logged in her neck. The other two girls have injuries that are not life threatening, according to CNN.
Yousufzai began blogging because of the Taliban’s restriction on education for females in her town. She wrote about the day-to-day battles of dealing with the Taliban and their restrictions.
“I have had such dreams since the launch of the military operation in Swat. My mother made me breakfast and I went off to school. I was afraid going to school because the Taliban had issued an edict banning all girls from attending schools,” she wrote.
Yousafzai was nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize in 2011 for her writings. She started being noticed in 2009 when she started her writings under the BBC’s Urdu service. In 2011, the Pakistan government gave her 1 million rupee ($10,500) in prize money for her braveness along with a peace award, according to Washington Post.
Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf said, “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?”