Name:Period:
Please mark the text as you read.
Teen Activist's Shooting Sparks Outrage
Yousafzai, Malala: Teen Activist
(Credit: (c) Rick Westhead/The Toronto Star/ZUMA Press) Photo Selected by ProQuest Staff
Fourteen-year-old MalalaYousafzai was shot by Taliban gunmen.
Did you ever complain about having to go to school? Most children do, sometimes. Fourteen-year-old MalalaYousafzai--Muh-LAY-luhYoo-soof-ZEYE--loves going to school. And because of this, she was the victim of a terrible attack in her native Pakistan. Men with guns shot Malala as she rode the bus to school. The men were from a group known as the Taliban. This is a Muslim group that follows their own very extreme and harsh ideas about their religion. Muslims follow the religion of Islam. Most people in Pakistan are Muslims, but most do not like the Taliban or its rules. The Taliban is fighting to control the part of northwest Pakistan where Malala'sfamily lives.
The Taliban's rules are especially harsh for women and girls. One of the Taliban's many rules is that girls cannot go to school after a certain age. When she was 11 years old, Malala wrote about what life was like under Taliban rules, and about how much she wanted to go to school. She wrote this for a blog, which is like a diary on the Internet. People around the world read this blog, which was published by the British Broadcasting Corporation, or BBC, one of the biggest broadcasters in the world.
Malala's parents also disagree with the Taliban's rules, so they let her go to school with a few other girls. The Taliban said they shot Malala because she criticized them, and because she doesn't follow their rules. Malala's injuries are very serious, and she has been moved to a hospital in the United Kingdom for treatment.
Malala's shooting sparked worldwide protests.
In 2009, when Malala was 11 years old, she wrote in her blog about how sad she felt about not being able to go to school. She talked about how that was because the Taliban had banned girls' education.
In most of Pakistan, the Taliban is not in control, and girls can go to school. The Taliban first came to power in Afghanistan in the 1990s. People there welcomed the Taliban because it promised to bring peace to the region after years of war. Eventually the Taliban spread into neighboring Pakistan. In 2007, the Taliban started trying to gain control over the area near the Afghanistan border. One of the ways they did this was to bomb and destroy schools. They targeted not only girls' schools, but any school that did not teach the Taliban's strict rules. In recent years, more than 450 schools have been attacked and thousands of Pakistanis have been killed.
Because of these attacks, many parents stopped sending their girls to school. But some girls, like Malala, kept going. Today, some girls in Pakistan go to school in tents because their schools are gone. The Taliban targeted Malala because they wanted to silence her and stop her from speaking out. But the attack on Malala has inspired people in her country to speak out against the Taliban. A group of Muslim religious leaders said the attack on Malala goes against Islam. And tens of thousands of people rallied in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, in support of Malala. Many hoped this tragedy will get the Pakistan government to take stronger action against the Taliban.
"I felt hurt on opening my wardrobe and seeing my uniform, school bag and geometry box. Boys' schools are opening tomorrow. But the Taliban have banned girls' education."--MalalaYousafzai diary entry, February 8, 2009
RAFFT your level two responses.
What choice did Malala make? Why did she make this choice?
What were two consequences of the choice Malala made? Use text details to support your answer.
Think about your own experiences in school. How is Malala’s educational experience different from yours? Use details from the text to support your answer.