Pakistan's Malala wins EU's Sakharov rights prize
Malala Yousafzai
(STRASBOURG) - Pakistan's Malala Yousafzai, the teenage activist nominated for this year's Nobel Peace Prize, won the EU's prestigious Sakharov human rights prize Thursday, drawing a fresh threat of murder by the Taliban.
To thunderous applause announcing the European Parliament prize, the assembly's president Martin Schulz said "Malala bravely stands for the right of all children to be granted a fair education. This right for girls is far too commonly neglected."
The parliament's vote for Malala from a shortlist of three nominees "acknowledges the incredible strength of this young woman," Schulz added.
The 16-year-old has become an emblem of the fight against the most radical forms of Islamism.
She was shot in the head by the Pakistani Taliban on October 9 last year for speaking out against them and has gone on to become a global ambassador for the right of all children to go to school.
In Pakistan, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) immediately vowed a fresh attempt on her life "even in America or the UK."
"She has done nothing," TTP spokesman Shahidullah Shahid told AFP. "She is getting awards because she is working against Islam."
She was taken to Britain for treatment in the wake of last year's attack and now goes to school in the central city of Birmingham.
Feted by world leaders and celebrities for her courage, she has addressed the UN, this week published an autobiography, and could become the youngest ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate on Friday.
In an interview with Pakistani radio station City89 FM this week she said she had not yet earned that accolade.
"There are many people who deserve the Nobel Peace Prize and I think that I still need to work a lot," she said.
There was no immediate response to winning the 50,000-euro ($65,000) Sakharov prize from Malala, who is currently in New York. It will be handed to her at a ceremony in Strasbourg on November 20.
Past winners include South African anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela and former UN secretary general Kofi Annan.
Malala first rose to prominence with a blog for the BBC Urdu service chronicling the difficulties of life under the rule of the Taliban, who controlled Swat valley from 2007 until they were kicked out by the army in 2009.
In the deeply conservative northwest region of Pakistan, women are often expected to stay at home to cook and rear children and officials say only around half of girls go to school -- though this is up from 34 percent in 2011.
Three jailed Belarussian dissidents and US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden had also been shortlisted for the EU's Sakharov prize.
Belarussians Ales Belyatsky, Eduard Lobau and Mykola Statkevich were jailed after mass protests in Minsk in December 2010 against the re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko.
Snowden, the US contractor who revealed widespread spying by the United states on friends and foes alike, has sought asylum in Russia.
Last year's award went to detained Iranians, lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh and film-maker Jafar Panahi, to honour those "standing up for a better Iran."
Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is to finally receive the Sakharov prize she won in 1990 at the height of the Myanmar military crackdown, the European Parliament said this week.
Suu Kyi, now leader of the opposition in Myanmar and aiming to run in presidential polls in 2015, is due to address MEPs on October 22, according to the parliament's schedule.