BBC News – Shot Pakistan girl Malala Yousafzai thanks well-wishers

Friday, 9 November 2012. A 15-year-old education campaigner shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in Pakistan has thanked people around the world for supporting her.

Malala Yousafzai was flown to Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, after being shot on a school bus in October.

Her father Zianuddin Yousafzai said she wanted to thank well-wishers for helping her “survive and stay strong”.

Meanwhile, more than 60,000 people have signed a petition calling for Malala to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Doctors in Birmingham, where Malala has been receiving specialist treatment, have said she stands every chance of making a good recovery.

She had campaigned for the rights of girls to have an education and had written a diary for the BBC Urdu service when the Pakistan Taliban controlled her home area of Swat.

‘Grateful and amazed’

Since the attack, the teenager has received thousands of goodwill messages from around the world.

Mr Yousafzai said in a statement issued by the hospital trust: “She wants me to tell everyone how grateful she is and is amazed that men, women and children from across the world are interested in her well-being.

“We deeply feel the heart-touching good wishes of the people across the world of all caste, colour and creed.”

In the UK, Shahida Choudhary has begun a campaign calling for Malala to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

She said: “Malala doesn’t just represent one young woman, she speaks out for all those who are denied an education purely on the basis of their gender. There are girls like Malala in the UK and across the world. I was one of them.

“I started this petition because a Nobel Peace Prize for Malala will send a clear message that the world is watching and will support those who stand up for the right of girls to get an education.”

Events are expected to take place around the world on Saturday to mark one month since Malala was shot.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-20259845

BBC News – Taliban threat worries Pakistan media

Wednesday, 17 October 2012. Pakistan’s media have expressed alarm at Taliban threats to target journalists after critical coverage of the shooting of Malala Yousufzai.

The 14-year-old education campaigner was seriously wounded as she returned home from school in the Swat valley.

The Pakistani Taliban said it had shot her for “promoting secularism”.

The All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) said Taliban threats directed at the media were aimed at curbing the freedom of the press.

Officials say the threats were uncovered in an intercepted phone call from a Pakistani Taliban leader.

In the call, intercepted by Pakistan’s intelligence agencies, Hakeemullah Mehsud, chief of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), reportedly gave his subordinate “special directions” to attack the media in cities including Lahore, Karachi, Rawalpindi and the capital Islamabad.

The APNS said the Taliban was trying to “browbeat the voice of the people”.

The Pakistan Press Foundation said religious scholars who publicly denounced the shooting had also been alerted by the government.

It said the government was taking the TPP threat seriously.

The BBC says it has “taken appropriate steps to protect its staff and operations in Pakistan” following the threats to media organisations.

“We are monitoring the situation and will take any necessary action to protect our staff. We continue to broadcast to Pakistan,” a BBC statement said.

Deadliest country

The attack on Malala, in which two other schoolgirls were wounded, was overwhelmingly condemned in Pakistan. Groups that have previously expressed some sympathy for the Taliban’s cause largely denounced the targeting of children.

The strength of reaction has put pressure on the government to take more action to tackle the insurgency.

Pakistani media quoted Taliban sources as saying they were angered by the level of attention that the attempted murder had received and felt the coverage was biased.

Malala was flown to the UK on Monday for specialist treatment at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.

A spokesman described her condition as stable and said she was responding well to treatment.

He added that reports about Malala’s family visiting her in hospital were wrong.

“We can clarify that currently the family are still in Pakistan,” the spokesman said.

The teenager is widely known as a campaigner for girls’ education in Pakistan. In early 2009 she wrote an anonymous diary for BBC Urdu about life under the Taliban, who, after taking over the Swat valley in 2007, banned all girls from attending school.

Officials in her province have issued a 10m rupee ($105,000; £66,000) reward for information leading to the arrest of the gunmen, while Interior Minister Rehman Malik has offered a $1m reward for the capture of Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Eshan.

Pakistan was named as the deadliest country for journalists in 2011 for a second year running, by campaign group Reporters Without Borders, which said that 10 journalists had been killed.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-19978021

The Asian Age – Malala Yousufzai attack: 3 brothers of Taliban commander arrested

Islamabad, 14 October 2012. Pakistani security agencies have arrested three brothers of a senior Taliban commander from Swat during a raid for alleged links to the near-fatal attack on teenage rights activist Malala Yousufzai, who is still on ventilator in hospital and making “slow and steady” progress.

The suspects, who were arrested yesterday in Nowshera district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, were sent to an undisclosed location for questioning, officials said. The officials told the media that another brother of the three men was a senior commander in the Taliban faction led by Maulana Fazlullah, who controlled Swat till the army launched an operation there in early 2009.

The suspects were held a day after Swat district police chief Gul Afzal Khan Afridi announced that they had made an “important breakthrough” by arresting three other men, whose identity not disclosed, on suspicion of involvement in the attack on 14-year-old Malala.

Afridi had said police were hopeful of arresting Ataullah, the alleged mastermind of Tuesday’s attack on Malala and two of her school friends, soon.

Earlier, police and security agencies had detained dozens of suspects for questioning in connection with the attack. The driver of Malala’s school bus too was questioned.

Most of these people were released after questioning. On Malala’s condition, the military today said she was making “slow and steady progress.” “Doctors have reviewed Malala’s condition and are satisfied. She is making slow and steady progress which is in keeping with expectations,” chief military spokesman Maj. Gen. Asim Saleem Bajwa said in a statement.

Malala has been on ventilator since she was shifted from Peshawar to the Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology in Rawalpindi on Thursday after doctors removed a bullet lodged near her backbone. She was shot in the head and neck during the Taliban attack on her and two of her school friends on Tuesday last.

Bajwa said recovery from “this type of injury is always slow.” (PTI)

http://www.asianage.com/international/malala-attack-3-brothers-taliban-commander-arrested-394

The Hindu – Malala Yousafzai wave sweeps Pakistan

Anita Joshua

Islamabad, 13 October 2012. When gun-toting men stopped their school wagon in Mingora last Tuesday around 12.45 pm asking for Malala Yousafzai, none of the three girls inside spoke. This, despite the terrorists threatening to shoot all of them if they did not identify Malala.

Today, stirred by the braveheart, who dared to stand up to the Taliban, and her friends, Shazia and Kainat, who refused to identify her even under threat, girls across Pakistan are saying ‘I am Malala.’

This is happening not just on the social media – which offers a degree of anonymity and security – but also on television and on the streets; some with their faces uncovered. ‘I-am-Malala’ has been trending not just in Pakistan but also in Afghanistan where girls’ education is equally at risk from the very same elements.

On Saturday, the Afghanistan Education Ministry organised a nationwide prayer for her at schools. She is being likened to ‘Malalai of Maiwand,’ the ‘Afghan Joan of Arc’ who rallied the Pashtun army against the British in 1880.

In an echo of the Pakistan People’s Party pet slogan kitne Bhutto maroge, har ghar se Bhutto niklega (how many Bhuttos will you kill, every house will produce one), the refrain across the country is “how many Malalas will you kill?’’

As daily vigils are being organised to pray for the speedy recovery of Malala and her friends, girls were coming forward; willing to stand up and be counted. Her classmate from the Khushal Public School in Mingora, asserted: “Every girl in Swat is Malala. We will educate ourselves. We will win. They can’t defeat us.’’

If anything, the fate of Malala – who came to represent the ‘voice of the girls of Swat’ because of her blog, written under the pseudonym Gul Makai, in which she advocated girls’ right to education during the Taliban reign of terror over Swat – has made the media a bit circumspect about exposing the girls too much for fear that the terrorists might target them, too.

Still, at vigils and demonstrations, children are turning up in considerable numbers; a rare sight in Pakistan where crowds are avoided given the impunity with which terrorists penetrate. Even in Peshawar – where there are indications of various terrorist outfits regrouping and mobilising after a brief lull – girls are coming out in support of Malala; fearing that silence is no longer an option.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/malala-wave-sweeps-pakistan/article3994568.ece?homepage=true

372.The Man in Blue – The North West Frontier Province

The North West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan is part of the inheritance of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, taken over in 1849 by the East India Company and after the 1857 Mutiny by the British Empire.

In the period before independence of India and Pakistan the leading political party of the NWFP would probably have preferred to be part of India. This might be because they were conquered by Panjabis in the past, and did not fancy being part of a state dominated by Panjabis.

It was good for the North West of India that Ranjit Singh conquered this border area of Afghanistan, and so controlled the Khyber Pass. But the Sikh Kingdom conquered the NWFP against the will of its population. It was ruled very harshly by the likes of General Paolo Bartolomeo Avitabile, an Italian general in the service of Ranjit Singh.

Avitabile was a ruthless ruler, summary executions became usual, and he had people executed by throwing them from the top of one of the city’s mosques. What was true then is true still : Pathans, whether in the NWFP or in Afghanistan are not the easiest to people to rule (and neither are Sikhs).

Under the Lahore Kingdom, under British rule and as part of Pakistan the so-called tribal areas were given a degree of autonomy because it was simply too difficult to control them. The Swat Valley which is very much in the news these days was a semi-independent princely state until 1969.

Although the valley does not have as turbulent a history as the tribal areas, part of the reason why there is support for the Taliban in Swat is that they were integrated in Pakistan without having any say in the matter.

I am just trying to give you a feel of the modern history of the NWFP and of the role played by the Sikhs. I have no brilliant suggestions on how to solve the present problems in the province.

Pakistan could of course give the NWFP back to Afghanistan, and maybe some parts of the border areas of Baluchistan as well. This will change the nature of the problems, but will not make them go away. Having violence in areas just across your borders is different from having them just inside your borders, but is not necessarily much better.

Pakistan should try to reach out to the people of the NWFP and their traditional leaders, bypassing the Taliban, and allow local autonomy in exchange for adherence to basic human rights.

I would be very surprised if this were to be accomplished by corrupt and incompetent Pakistani politicians like Ali Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif.