Malala Yousafzai 'will not be silenced'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk

The family of the 14-year-old girl shot by the Taliban say the assassination attempt will not force them to flee Pakistan or silence their daughter's criticism of extremists.

Malala Yousafzai remains in a critical condition after being singled out by gunmen on her way home from school on Tuesday. Her courage in writing a blog about life under the Pakistan Taliban when they controlled the Swat Valley has turned her into a national hero in a country where few are brave enough to challenge extremism. Doctors cannot yet say whether she will make a full recovery. Hours after surgeons removed a bullet from his daughter's neck, Ziaddun Yousafzai told The Daily Telegraph that his family had no intention of seeking asylum overseas. "We wouldn't leave our country if my daughter survives or not," said Mr Yousafzai, at the military hospital in the north-western city of Peshawar where Malala is being treated."We have an ideology that advocates peace. The Taliban cannot stop all independent voices through the force of bullets." He added that the family had received multiple threats but had never considered stopping their campaign against the Taliban or leaving Mingora, the main town of Swat. Mr Yousafzai also said his family had rejected offers of security for his daughter in the past. "We stayed away from that because she is a young female. The tradition here does not allow a female to have men close by," he said. The Pakistan Taliban has already said it will try again to kill Malala if she survives. On Wednesday family friends reported fresh threats against Malala's father and brother. Malala won international recognition for highlighting Taliban atrocities in Swat with an anonymous blog for the BBC three years ago, when the Islamist militants led by radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah burned girls schools and terrorised the valley. Her struggle resonated with tens of thousands of girls who were denied an education by Islamist militants. Gunmen flagged down her school bus on Tuesday and opened fire after asking for the young activist by name. Two other girls were injured. A spokesman for the Pakistan Taliban has tried to justify they the attack, accusing Malala of embarking on a secular, pro-Western campaign at odds with the conservative values of the local Pashtun population. The nature of the attack has stunned Pakistan, a country hardened by years of militant and army brutality. Human rights groups, politicians and commentators have united in condemnation raising hopes the shooting might prove a turning point in the country's perceived reluctance to take on militant havens in the north-west. It has also raised serious questions about security more than three years after the army claimed to have crushed a Taliban insurgency in the valley. For the time being, her hospital room has become a magnet for politicians and military leaders keen to burnish their anti-militant credentials. The military released a photograph of General Ashfaq Kayani, Pakistan's powerful military chief, looking awkward beside her hospital bed. "The cowards who attacked Malala and her fellow students, have shown time and again how little regard they have for human life and how low they can fall in their cruel ambition to impose their twisted ideology," he said in a statement. The military said it had a simple message, which it wrote in capital letters in a statement to add emphasis: "WE REFUSE TO BOW BEFORE TERROR." Doctors, who operated on Malala in the early hours of the morning to remove a bullet from close to her spinal cord, have concluded she is too ill to be flown overseas for more specialist help. A 737 jet remains on standby to fly her to Dubai.