Malala Flown to Birmingham

Malala Yousafzai is a 14 year old girl from Pakistan whose bravery and passion drove her into the realm of human rights and activism. Her love for justice and pro-active engagement in furthering the cause of Pakistani girls in her country drew the attention of Taliban. She was shot in the head by Taliban for her cause-the right to an education for Pakistani girls.

Malala has now been flown to Birmingham Airport in central England at approximately 3:50pm (1450GMT) where she will receive continual treatment and recover at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. She was flown in an air ambulance provided by the United Arab Emirates. The hospital is an up-to-date, highly specialised facility which has housed British soldiers gravely injured in Afghanistan (as per a spokeswoman for Prime Minister David Cameron).

The decision to fly her to Birmingham was determined by physicians caring for Malala in Pakistan. She had extensive damage to her skull and needs “intensive neuro-rehabilitation.” The egregiously shameless and flabbergasting acts of the Taliban are exceedingly offensive to public sensibilities and strikes at the heart of all morality. British Foreign Secretary William Hague correctly posited that the traumatic event was a "barbaric attack" and a shock to the world and Pakistan.

“Malala will now receive specialist medical care in an NHS (National Health Service) hospital,” he informed.

“The public revulsion and condemnation of this cowardly attack shows that the people of Pakistan will not be beaten by terrorists.”

Malala's fervant campaign against injustice and the trampling upon of women's rights in her country began when she was 11 years old. She wrote a letter to BBC bringing attention to the violations being committed in her country under the Islamist Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), who reigned the Swat valley abusively from 2007 until an army offensive in 2009.

The attack has been labelled by activists as a huge wake out of a long hibernation against apathy and complicity -directly or indirectly via silent acquiescance-with the Taliban. Malala may be injured and fallen yet she can rise up again and pick up her cause. She has people around the world supporting her and empathizing with her. Around 10 000 people rallied in Karachi on Sunday for Malala (The rally was organised by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM)).

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