Pakistan schools shut to protest Taliban shooting of young activist
Source: Agencies |
October 11, 2012, Thursday
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MANY schools in Pakistan's Swat Valley closed their doors in protest yesterday and the country's army chief vowed to fight on against militants as anger erupted across the nation over the Taliban attack on a 14-year-old activist famed for promoting girls' education.
Malala Yousufzai was in the intensive care unit at a military hospital in Peshawar, recovering from an early morning surgery to remove a bullet from her neck a day after the attack. A Pakistani official said doctors thought she was out of danger.
"She is improving. But she is still unconscious," said the information minister in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Mian Iftikhar Hussain.
He said there was no decision yet whether the girl needed to be taken abroad for further treatment.
The shooting of Malala on her way home from school on Tuesday in the town of Mingora in the volatile Swat Valley horrified Pakistanis across the religious, political and ethnic spectrum. A Taliban gunman walked up to a bus taking schoolchildren and shot her in the head and neck. Another girl on the bus was also wounded.
The country's top military officer, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, issued a statement condemning the attack.
"In attacking Malala, the terrorist have failed to grasp that she is not only an individual, but an icon of courage and hope who vindicates the great sacrifices that the people of Swat and the nation gave, for wresting the valley from the scourge of terrorism," Kayani said. He vowed the military would not bow to terrorists.
"We will fight, regardless of the cost we will prevail," he said.
He also visited the hospital to get a first-hand account of her condition, the statement said.
Malala is admired across Pakistan for exposing the Taliban's atrocities and advocating for girls' education in the face of religious extremism.
She began writing a blog when she was just 11 under a pseudonym for the BBC about life under the Taliban, and began speaking out publicly in 2009 about the need for girls' education. The Taliban strongly opposes education for women, and the group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Private schools in the Swat Valley were closed yesterday in a sign of protest over the shooting and in solidarity with Malala, said Ahmed Shah, the chairman of an association of private schools. Flags in front of the Mingora government headquarters were at half-staff.
Malala Yousufzai was in the intensive care unit at a military hospital in Peshawar, recovering from an early morning surgery to remove a bullet from her neck a day after the attack. A Pakistani official said doctors thought she was out of danger.
"She is improving. But she is still unconscious," said the information minister in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Mian Iftikhar Hussain.
He said there was no decision yet whether the girl needed to be taken abroad for further treatment.
The shooting of Malala on her way home from school on Tuesday in the town of Mingora in the volatile Swat Valley horrified Pakistanis across the religious, political and ethnic spectrum. A Taliban gunman walked up to a bus taking schoolchildren and shot her in the head and neck. Another girl on the bus was also wounded.
The country's top military officer, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, issued a statement condemning the attack.
"In attacking Malala, the terrorist have failed to grasp that she is not only an individual, but an icon of courage and hope who vindicates the great sacrifices that the people of Swat and the nation gave, for wresting the valley from the scourge of terrorism," Kayani said. He vowed the military would not bow to terrorists.
"We will fight, regardless of the cost we will prevail," he said.
He also visited the hospital to get a first-hand account of her condition, the statement said.
Malala is admired across Pakistan for exposing the Taliban's atrocities and advocating for girls' education in the face of religious extremism.
She began writing a blog when she was just 11 under a pseudonym for the BBC about life under the Taliban, and began speaking out publicly in 2009 about the need for girls' education. The Taliban strongly opposes education for women, and the group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Private schools in the Swat Valley were closed yesterday in a sign of protest over the shooting and in solidarity with Malala, said Ahmed Shah, the chairman of an association of private schools. Flags in front of the Mingora government headquarters were at half-staff.
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