Malala Yousufzai
Pakistani
schoolgirl and campaigner Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by
the Taliban, has won the EU’s Sakharov human rights prize, the British Broadcasting Corporation reports.
The 16-year-old activist was shot a year ago for campaigning for better rights for girls.
The Sakharov Prize for free speech is
awarded by the European Parliament annually in memory of Soviet
physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov.
The 50,000 euro ($65,000) prize is considered Europe’s top human rights award.
Malala rose to prominence in 2009 after writing a blog anonymously for the BBC Urdu service about her life under Taliban rule and the lack of education for girls.
She lived in Pakistan’s mountainous Swat
Valley and her name became internationally known after the Pakistan
army pushed the Taliban out of the area in 2009.
The Taliban’s Islamist doctrine puts
harsh restrictions on women’s rights and one of the militants shot her
as she was riding in a bus with school friends.
Punch
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