Pakistan’s teenage activist Malala Yousafzai, shot by the Taliban for fighting for girls’ rights to education, was awarded the European Parliament’s prestigious Sakharov human rights prize.
“Today, we decided to let the world know that our hope for a better future stands in young people like Malala Yousafzai,” said the chairman of the conservative European People’s Party (EPP), Joseph Daul on Thursday.
Malala Yousafzai who has become an emblem of the fight against the most radical forms of Islamism has also been nominated for the Nobel peace prize.
The 16 year old, was attacked in northwestern Pakistan by a group of gunmen who fired on her school bus.
The teenager, who has written a book about her ordeal, is still living in Britain a year after the attack as she remains threatened by the Taliban who say they will kill her should she return to Pakistan.
The principal at her old school says that as Malala’s fame has grown, so has fear in her classrooms.
The Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought is given by the European Parliament each year since 1988 to commemorate Soviet scientist and dissident Andrei Sakharov.
Its past winners include Nelson Mandela and Burmese activist Aung San Suu Kyi.
Edward Snowden had been nominated by the Green group in the parliament for what it said was his “enormous service” to human rights and European citizens when he disclosed secret United States surveillance programmes.
Yousafzai was chosen as the winner after a vote among the heads of all the political groups in the 750-member parliament.