Malala Yousafzai: Take my name off Pakistani college
Pakistani students march during a protest against the assassination attempt of child activist Malala Yousafzai, in Karachi on October 11, 2012. The Pakistani child activist that shot in the head by the Taliban was airlifted to the country’s top military hospital for specialist treatment, is still in a critical condition, officials said. The shooting of 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai on a school bus in the Swat valley has been denounced worldwide and by the Pakistani authorities, who have offered a reward of more than US$100,000 for the capture of her attackers.
KARACHI, Pakistan— Malala Yousafzai, the 15-year-old girl shot by the Taliban in October, has asked Pakistan's government to remove her name from a college in Pakistan's Swat Valley, saying that the name made the school a Taliban target.
Her decision came after the school was closed following demonstrations soon after the decision to rename it in her honor was announced, The New York Times reported. Girls who attended the school, which is located in Mingora, where Malala is from, had protested the new name, saying it would make them more vulnerable to attacks. Protesters reportedly threw stones and tore a poster of the activist.
The Telegraph reported that Swat Valley's district coordination officer, Kamran Rehman Khan, who was responsible for the school, said that Malala called him and "asked that the name of the college be changed and reverted back to its original name or any other name except hers."
He was careful to specify that the protesters were not protesting against Malala, but rather at the security threat the school faced by naming. The institution will remain Saidu Postgraduate College for girls, Khan said.
The request was not immediately granted, according to the NY Times.
After she was shot twice by a gunman acting on an order from the Taliban, Malala became a national figurehead for girls' education. She was on Time Magazine's shortlist for Person of the Year. Malala is currently recuperating in England, where she was taken for emergency surgery.