LONDON — The European Parliament on Thursday awarded its prestigious Sakharov human rights prize to Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot in the head by the Taliban for her advocacy of girls’ education.
Pakistani Student Wins Top European Human Rights Award
Adam B. Ellick/The New York Times
The Making of Malala: The story of Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl, told by The Times’s Adam B. Ellick, who made a 2009 documentary about her before she was an international star.
By DECLAN WALSH
Published: October 10, 2013
Multimedia
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Ms. Yousafzai, 16, has become a global symbol of bravery after being attacked on her way home from school in the Swat Valley, in northwestern Pakistan, a year ago. She is seen as a strong contender for the Nobel Peace Prize, due to be announced Friday, although the identity of the peace laureate is notoriously hard to forecast.
Ms. Yousafzai was chosen as the winner of the $65,000 Sakharov Prize by the head of all the political groups in the 766-member European Parliament. She was a less contentious choice than Edward J. Snowden, the American intelligence contractor whose revelations about American and British electronic surveillance have angered the governments in those countries, and who was also shortlisted for the prize.
Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament, said in a statement issued in Strasbourg, France, on Thursday: “By awarding the Sakharov Prize to Malala Yousafzai, the European Parliament acknowledges the incredible strength of this young woman. Malala bravely stands for the right of all children to be granted a fair education. This right for girls is far too commonly neglected.”
After being shot in October 2012, Ms. Yousafzai was brought to Britain for emergency surgery. She has recovered well from her injuries and appeared before the United Nations in July, where she delivered an impassioned appeal for children's right to an education.
She lives with her family in Birmingham, England, and published a memoir this week amid considerable media attention. She is a more controversial figure, however, at home in Pakistan, where right-wing critics accuse her of pandering to Western culture and political agendas.
The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought was established in 1988 in honor of the Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov. Previous winners include Nelson Mandela and Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary general.
Paddy Power, an Irish bookmaker, on Thursday morning listed Ms. Yousafzai as the second favorite to win the Nobel Peace Prize, behind Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynecologist who has treated women who have been gang-raped during the continuing conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
But William Hill, a bookmaker in Britain, offered odds of 4 to 6 on her winning the Nobel Prize, leading a field of contenders that includes Mr. Snowden at 20 to 1, and Julian Assange, the founder of the antisecrecy organization WikiLeaks, at 25 to 1.
The award on Thursday came six days after Ms. Yousafzai was named the winner of the Anna Politkovskaya Award, named for the Russian journalist and critic of the Kremlin who worked to uncover abuses in Chechnya and was fatally shot in her apartment building in 2006. The prize is awarded by a group called Reach All Women in War to a woman who works to promote human rights.