Friday, March 16, 2018
West hopes to hurt, intimidate Russia
In the meantime, the US announced new sanctions on five Russian entities and 19 individuals for what was believed their interference with US presidential elections and cyber attacks.
This new round of "bullying" of Russia by the US and its European allies is quite abrupt and acute. London ignored usual diplomatic procedures to issue an ultimatum to Moscow and began sanctions. It feels like racing against time.
It makes people think of the upcoming Russian presidential election on March 18. The West wrestling with Russia at this particular moment has become a major factor for Russia's elections. It is hard to distinguish how much of the antagonism reflect its true severity and how much is designed to target Russia's elections.
The past couple of years has witnessed the most strenuous period of Russia's relations with the West. The improvement in their relations since the end of the Cold War has almost run out. However, today's Russia, without satellite states, is incomparable with the strength of the former Soviet Union when dealing with the strategic pressure from the West.
Russia still has three cards in its hand. First, it's a major nuclear power, which prevents the West from engaging in direct military conflict; second, Russia's rich resources make it highly self-sufficient to counter sanctions; third, Russia's strong national spirit has united Russian society in support of Vladimir Putin. Eliminating the third card and pressuring Russian society toward dismay and instability will weaken the political foundation of Putin's rule.
Analysts believe Putin will win the election without a doubt, and that the West's sanctions will likely provide new momentum for Putin's supporters. But maybe some Western elite think the other way and wish to drain Putin's votes or undermine his authority via a new round of sanctions that may pressure the Russian public.
Western countries have been quite freewheeling in imposing sanctions on Russia, as they don't see much cost in doing so.
The harsh attitude of Western countries toward Russia resembles their unity in the face of major geopolitical and value challenges despite problems in their own camp. Any non-Western competitor could become their shared target, which is part of the current world order.
China's top political advisory body concludes annual session, stressing CPC leadership
"Taking a clear political stand is an essential feature of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC)," said Wang Yang, newly-elected chairman of the 13th CPPCC National Committee, when addressing the closing of the session.
The CPC leadership is a fundamental political guarantee for the development of the CPPCC and a basic political principle that the advisory body must observe in the new era, Wang said.
Wang asked political advisors to uphold the CPC leadership, take Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as the guiding principle for the work of the CPPCC, perform their duties for the people, improve their consultation competence, and act within the boundaries of the Constitution and laws.
A resolution on an amendment to the CPPCC Charter was passed at the meeting in a move widely believed by observers as representing an important chapter in the development of democracy in China.
Xi's thought was incorporated into the amendment as a guiding theory of the CPPCC.
The definition of the CPPCC's nature and tasks was enriched, and the idea of "socialist consultative democracy" was written into the charter.
This was the fourth amendment to the CPPCC charter since it was adopted in 1982.
The CPPCC is an important organ for multiparty cooperation and political consultation led by the CPC, which has been described as "a new type of party system growing from China's soil."
As a distinctively Chinese political institution, it is a major channel for socialist consultative democracy.
As of 5 p.m. on March 9, political advisors had submitted 5,360 proposals since the session started on March 3, ranging from strengthening overall CPC leadership, the "three critical battles" against major risks, poverty, and pollution, to high-quality development.
A resolution on a work report of the Standing Committee of the 12th CPPCC National Committee, a report on the examination of proposals, and a political resolution on the annual session were also approved at the closing meeting.
The CPPCC should uphold the CPC leadership, firmly safeguard the core status of Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, the authority of the CPC Central Committee and its centralized, unified leadership, the political resolution read.
It called on political advisors to rally Chinese people from all parties, social and ethnic groups, strata and sectors to strive for the achievement of goals and tasks set at the 19th CPC National Congress in October.
Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Zhang Gaoli, Li Zhanshu, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji and Han Zheng attended the closing meeting.
Xi and other Chinese leaders took group photos with political advisors after the meeting.
Imran Khan's ex-wife and activist Reham Khan: 'sexual coercion rife in Pakistani politics'
In an interview with DW, Reham Khan, the former wife of Pakistani politician Imran Khan, talks about her upcoming book, sexual harassment of female politicians in Pakistan, and her plans to return to the country.
DW: Tell us something about your upcoming autobiography. Media reports say the book will shed a negative light on Imran Khan, your former husband and Pakistani politician. Is it true?
Reham Khan: The book tells the story of my life, my experiences, and my journey through different continents, different cultures. My marriages are a part of my life and so have been included in the book. It is an honest account.
Why have you planned to release the book just before the general elections in Pakistan?
The timing of the book isn't, as such, timed keeping the elections in mind. Firstly, we do not know if the elections will take place at all this year. Secondly, it took me a while to put down painful memories on paper. It was like scratching a wound.
I think that the people in Pakistan, policymakers and [foreign] investors should learn from my experiences. If there are to be elections this year, I think the book will be very helpful to all those who want an insight [into Pakistan].
As Khan's former wife, did you participate in Pakistani politics?
I categorically state that I did not participate in PTI politics. I was told to be engaged in certain activities as wives of politicians are asked to do all over the world.
If [Former British PM] David Cameron's wife could go door to door and campaign [for her husband] then why Reham Khan should be criticized? I was doing what I was told to do. I never once arranged a political event myself.
Are female politicians given as much importance in Pakistan as their male counterparts? And how are women politicians treated in Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf party (PTI, Movement for Justice)?
Women politicians in Pakistan have to deal with severe sexual harassment within their own parties and from their opponents. Sexual coercion is used blatantly and [party] positions are given in return for sexual favors. Many women have to give up their [political] careers if they refuse to entertain such requests.
#Pakistan - It is time we pay attention to the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement's demands - The Pakhtun spring
Khurram Husain
Their stories are finding so much traction in the wider society, that the beginning of a grass-roots movement appears to be in the making. What is particularly interesting about this movement is that it is spontaneous, and has an amorphous leadership drawn from a younger generation with no links to organised politics. What is dismaying to see is how their efforts have been ignored by the big mainstream political parties, as well as the mainstream media.
Going by the name of the Pashtun Long March, or the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), their demands are simple. They want the rights that the Constitution guarantees them: the right to be secure from arbitrary detention, the right to peaceably assemble, to speak their minds. The roots of the movement go back in time to the discontentment that was brewing in the camps set up to house IDPs from the military operations in the tribal agencies, as well as Swat, in the 10-year campaign against the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan. The discontentment grew out of a sense of humiliating treatment by state authorities, whether at any of the myriad checkpoints or at Nadra centres when applying for a national identity card. In addition, they have lent their support to the recommendations of the Fata reforms committee, finalised in late 2016 (and yet to be implemented).
Listen to the voices at the sit-in they held in Islamabad. Listen again to the voices that spoke at their events in Zhob and Qila Saifullah last week, or in Quetta this Sunday. Listen also to the voice of Raza Wazir, writing in the New York Times, describing what it is like to grow up a Pakhtun amid the ‘war on terror’. Fortunately for us, social media recorded these events even as mainstream media chose to focus its attention on the Senate elections.
Listen to their voices, and you will not believe that they are describing the same Pakistan that you and I live in.
Listen to these voices, they are not hard to find, and your ears will not believe that they are describing the same Pakistan that you and I live in. The stories they tell sound more like those one hears coming out of active war zones like Iraq and Sudan, and one is hard-pressed to believe that an entire generation has grown up with the horrors of such an enormity as a basic fact of their lives.
Consider this: anybody below the age of 30, who is from any of the tribal areas, Swat, or even Peshawar or Quetta, came of age during the war that began in 2001, a little more than a decade and half ago. A 10-year-old in 2001 would be 28 years today. If lucky, this child would have completed schooling, and college by now, and reached the stage in life when one is full of optimism as one goes about the task of building a life, family, career, job, business. But for a young man or woman who has reached this age, and succeeded in not getting sucked into the war as a combatant or as a victim, the experience of this age is very different.
What is even more terrible in seeing this unfold is the memory of the enormous sacrifices made by the people of Peshawar, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa more broadly, as well as Quetta during the ‘war on terror’. We have forgotten the early years of the terrible conflict with the TTP that got going following the Lal Masjid operation, when bombings in Peshawar had become an almost daily occurrence, including, in one case, targeting a market frequented by women and children specifically.
“An enormous strength of character is shining through,” went an editorial in The News at the time, hailing the stoic strength with which the people of Peshawar and the rest of KP braved the terrible rain of calamities coming down upon them with ferocity. Thousands died in that rain of bombings that stretched for years after Lal Masjid, but not once did we see the people or the leadership of this great province plead for mercy.
This is not the first time we are hearing these tales. Only a few years earlier, a marvellous rebel emerged from Quetta city, telling a story very similar to the ones being told by the young men and women of the PTM. He had lost a son apparently in a counter-insurgency operation and resolved to walk from Quetta all the way to Islamabad, stopping in towns along the way to meet small groups of people and tell them what was happening in his province. His name is Mama Qadeer, and his long march was one of the earliest of these grass-roots voices to emerge from the depths of a conflict that the rest of us know little about.
Along the way there have been others, farmers in Okara, families asking after loved ones gone missing, each asking for nothing more than justice, for their rights, for inclusion as equal citizens in the social contract that ties us all together.
What is sad to see is how the play of democratic politics has missed these voices almost entirely. The self-correction of democracy, one of the most powerful social forces in the world, relies on harvesting these grievances and channelling them into the mainstream political life of the system. But when democratic politics is disfigured by the constant play of unelected forces, it responds less to the demands coming from below, and more to the pressures coming from above. The recent Senate election, which happened at the same time as the PTM march, was only the latest instance where this disfigurement of our democratic polity was plainly in view.
#Pakistan - Bravo, Sherry Rehman!
The PPP’s Sherry Rehman is a woman who can. And presently, she is all set to assume the position of Leader of the Opposition in the Senate; having secured the support of some 33 Upper House lawmakers. Twenty-seven endorsements in an opposition bench of 54 are needed for a clear run.
This is good news all round; but particularly for Pakistan’s media. For the former career journalist has always stood firm for press freedom. In 2008, she challenged the two constitutional ordinances that were introduced under the brief period of martial law the previous year; and which related to a ban on live news broadcasts involving suicide bombers and extremists as well as custodial sentences for journalists found ‘guilty’ of defaming or mocking the president.
And none of this was hot air. For back in 2009 Rehman famously resigned as the minister for Information and Broadcasting after then president, Asif Ali Zardari, took Geo TV off the air for its ‘critical’ coverage of his regime. The channel had given extensive airtime to the four-day Long March to Islamabad in which lawyers and civil society activists protested the government’s failure to reinstate the judges dismissed by the previous set-up; something that it had promised to do within 30 days after sweeping the general elections the year before.
That Bilawal Bhutto Zardari nominated Rehman for this latest position demonstrates maturity on the part of the PPP co-Chairman. Not to mention more than a touch of pragmatism. For Rehman embodies core party principles. Seen as a liberal, the PPP vice president has fought long and hard for women’s rights. Indeed, she submitted the following before the National Assembly: the Women Empowerment Bill, Anti-Honor Killings Bill, Domestic Violence Prevention Bill, Affirmative Action Bill and Hudood Repeal Bill.
Rehman is also a friend of Pakistan’s most vulnerable. She and the late Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti had co-authored a bill to amend the country’s draconian blasphemy laws following the incarceration of a Christian woman, Asia Bibi. Never being one afraid to speak out, Rehman went as far as accusing her own party of appeasement when it failed to introduce this legislation to the floor.
Of course, she is not without detractors. As is typically the case here in Pakistan when dealing with a public figure who dares talk truth to power there are always conspiracy theories and baseless rumours. But to be clear: Sherry Rehman has demonstrated her steel-nerve persona when dealing with such critics. Nothing has stopped her from advocating legislative reform, democratic consolidation and a sensible foreign policy. Jinnah Institute, the think tank she founded, is an influential space for policy advocacy. All of this explains why Senators across the political divide supported her, including those from FATA and Balochistan.
Considering all the allegations of horse-trading in the Senate elections that were held earlier this month — it is heartening to see someone finally winning on merit. For Sherry Rehman is the right woman for the job. *
Bilawal to contest upcoming general elections from NA-200 Larkana
Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will be contesting the upcoming general elections from NA-200 Larkana constituency, confirmed party’s Sindh president, Nisar Ahmed Khuhro here Friday.
The constituency NA-200 comprises Larkana city, Ratodera Taluka and areas within the radius of Panu Aqil.
While announcing this, Khuhro also challenged all opposition parties to field their candidates against Bilawal.
Before the recent delimitation of constituencies, the NA-200 was better known as NA-207, the seat which was formerly used by Bilawal’s mother late Benzair Bhutto to contest the polls.
It was won by PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari’s sister Faryal Talpur, against Ghinwa Bhutto, in the last general elections.
“Bilawal will win with record votes from Larkana. The 2018 elections will be the first for Bilawal and the last for all his opponents,” stated Khuhro.
In a rebuke towards PML-N, he stated that PPP will come out victorious in Punjab as well as “the Senate elections have shown that Nawaz Sharif is going to fail.”
He further added that they will work tirelessly for Bilawal Bhutto and would like to see him as the head of state.
Christians come under threat in Pakistan: ‘No one accused of blasphemy is ever safe’
By Pamela Constable
It was a quiet February morning when the mob of men in green turbans came surging through the alleys of a run-down Christian neighborhood in this town outside Lahore. Some carried cans of fuel. They were hunting for a young man named Patras Massih, and they were in a state of frenzy.
“They were shouting and breaking things. They said to hand him over, or we will burn the whole community down,” recounted Sana, 28, a neighbor whose front door was kicked in and whose TV and washing machine were smashed.
By then, most other residents had fled, warned by police to evacuate the area that day. They were coming to arrest the illiterate janitor, 20, on charges of blasphemy, accompanied by a group of Islamist activists. He was away at work, so the police detained several of his relatives as insurance and departed, along with the vigilantes.
Today, Massih is awaiting trial in prison for having allegedly shared an image on Facebook Messenger of an unidentified man standing triumphantly atop the prophet Muhammad’s tomb. His family is in hiding, along with his cousin Sajid, 26, who jumped from a fourth-story window while being questioned at a police building and nearly died from his injuries.
The case illustrates the growing reach and aggressiveness of Pakistan’s once-obscure anti-blasphemy movement, which has gained wide popular support since staging a three-week protest outside the capital, Islamabad, in November. The group filed the original complaint against Massih and was treated deferentially by the police. Now leaders of the area’s minority Christians are beginning to fear they are no longer safe.
“Our life is over,” said Massih’s father Inderias, sitting despondently in a legal rights office in Lahore on Sunday. Even if he is found innocent and released, his father said, “we will always be afraid someone will attack us. No one accused of blasphemy is ever safe.”
‘This was never our war’
The Movement in Service to the Sanctity of the Prophet, formed several years ago, has caught fire across Pakistan, its emerald banners rippling from rooftops and taxis. Rather than advocating extreme ideology or terrorist tactics, it calls on ordinary Muslims to “defend” deeply held principles, especially reverence for the prophet Muhammad.
Government officials, almost all Muslim, have struggled to curb religious rabble-rousing without being seen as insufficiently devout. Many privately sympathize with the anti-blasphemy cause; some who try to mend fences have been humiliated. On Sunday, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif spoke at a Sunni seminary in Lahore, but two people from the audience threw shoes at him. One shouted exultantly, “We are here, oh prophet!”
Lahore, the capital of Pakistan’s most populous and wealthy province, is also the home of Sharif’s ruling party and half a dozen Islamist groups. In October, the anti-blasphemy group and a second religious party ran test candidates in a legislative race there, and observers say it could become a key battleground in their bid to influence the national elections later this year.
The region is also home to the country’s largest concentration of Christians, who constitute about 10 percent of the populace. Until now the anti-blasphemy forces have focused on condemning Ahmedis, another minority religious group, but Christians have come under attack before, and activists said the number of blasphemy accusations against them is growing.
“This was never our war. We have much in common with Muslims, and when problems arose we have always tried to settle things informally,” said Mary Gill, a Christian member of the Punjab provincial legislature. “We are not against the blasphemy law. We just want to prevent its misuse.”
Leaders of the anti-blasphemy group in Lahore did not respond to requests for comment, but several members said they bore no ill will toward Christians. “All should be free to pray, to live,” said one. “Our goal is to see sharia fully implemented, but respect for Christians is obligatory.”
But activists cited several cases of false blasphemy accusations and mob violence against Christians, provoked by rumors or disputes. An elderly villager was accused and attacked after he refused to sell his house in a Muslim area. A couple was burned alive in a brick factory oven after word spread that they had burned pages of the Koran.
In the Massih case, the anti-blasphemy group filed formal charges that he had shared the image mocking the prophet’s tomb with friends in a Facebook Messenger group. Police told Pakistani media that Massih had confessed under questioning and apologized.
But the family and their lawyer told a different story. They described a complex conspiracy that involved Muslim youths who fought with Massih at a cricket match, a mobile-phone shop owner who belonged to the anti-blasphemy group and a local landowner who wanted to drive out low-income Christian squatters.
“There are conspiracies through the whole story,” said the lawyer, Aneeqa Anthony. “This is a very emotional issue, and people in mobs don’t pay attention to facts; they just know they have been told that blasphemy has occurred, and they want someone to be hanged for it.”
Anthony said officers of the Federal Investigative Agency falsely accused Massih of sharing the offensive image on Jan. 16, a date when his cellphone was at the repair shop. She also said he could not read or write but put his thumbprint on a written confession after being beaten in custody.
The abusive treatment of Sajid Massih, she said, was far worse. Her office has filed charges accusing investigators of beating him, then ordering him to perform oral sex on Patras Massih before he leaped out the window. The agency insists that Sajid jumped out of panic that they would find deleted blasphemous photos on his cellphone, but it is also conducting an internal investigation.
Sajid’s account, on a video recorded at his hospital bedside, is barely audible. His face is swollen and bruised, but his words are clear enough. “They told me to curse Patras,” he says in the recording. “They told me to take off his pants and do sex with him. I asked forgiveness and said he is my brother. They told me to take off my pants. I saw the window was open, and I jumped.”
An uneasy coexistence
In Shahdara, a crowded working-class district where Dhair is located, pockets of Christians have coexisted with Muslims for decades. At the end of one alley, a tall steel gate with a guard tower stands outside St. Luke’s Catholic Church.
On Sunday, the pews were crammed for communion and hymns in Urdu, accompanied on a handheld harmonium. Older congregants said they had worshiped there for years without incident, but Rafael Mehnga, the priest, said tensions had been growing since the protests in November.
“The issue of blasphemy has become highlighted and more sensitive now,” he said. “If it is misused, if neighbors start to doubt, it can be a danger to every citizen. There is no threat to their religion. But in the name of it, they are creating a threat.”
In the twisting alleys of Dhair, Christian residents said they had no animosity toward Muslims and respected Islam. No one rose to Massih’s defense. A Muslim horsecart driver, chatting with a Christian teacher, said somewhat heatedly that Massih should be punished if found guilty, and his family, too.
The teacher nodded, then spoke quietly: “Yes, but not all Christians.”
U.S. seeks 'real action' from Pakistan on militant groups
Roberta Rampton
The United States has not yet seen Pakistan take significant steps to clamp down on the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network militant groups, a senior U.S. administration official said on Friday.
The administration suspended about $2 billion in security assistance to Pakistan in January but Islamabad has failed to take “the kind of decisive and irreversible action” Washington has asked for to help with the war in Afghanistan, the official told reporters.
The administration has been frustrated by what it sees as Pakistan’s reluctance to act against the Afghan Taliban and the affiliated Haqqani network. Washington believes the groups use Pakistan as a safe haven for launching attacks on neighboring Afghanistan. Pakistan denies helping the militants. The United States has been at war in Afghanistan since 2001, making it America’s longest military conflict. President Donald Trump agreed in August to a stepped-up military campaign against the Taliban, and has since increased pressure on Pakistan to help.
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Tuesday said he has seen some positive signs from Islamabad, including Pakistani military operations along the border - and the senior administration official agreed.
“I think the Pakistanis have wanted to appear responsive to our requests,” the senior administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “What I would say is, they have done the bare minimum to appear responsive to our requests,” the official said, saying more proactive steps were needed.
U.S. officials have told their Pakistani counterparts what types of actions are needed to lift the suspension of aid, the official said, declining to elaborate on the specifics.
“We are prepared to take steps that we think are necessary to safeguard U.S. personnel and interests in the region,” the official said, declining comment on what those steps would be, and on deadlines for action.
“We are continuing to look for real action, not just words, from Pakistan on the Taliban and Haqqani sanctuaries,” the official said.
Who is Krishna Kohli?, the first-ever Thari Hindu woman to be elected to Pakistan’s Senate
Hamid Sheikh
In a historic move, Krishna Kumari Kohli has become the first-ever Thari Hindu woman to be elected to Pakistan’s Senate.
The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader from a village in Tharparkar is the first-ever senator from a scheduled caste. The 39-year-old is mentioned at No 23 in the Pakistani Schedule Castes Ordinance, 1957.
Krishna's rise to the Senate was not an easy one.
Born in 1979, Krishna hails from Nagarparkar, a village in Tharparkar where women are to date deprived of basic facilities. She battled hunger and poverty early in her life, and was also a victim of bonded labour.
Her family was tied to bonded labour and she had work on the lands of village landlords.
Despite her hardships, driven by her passion for knowledge, Krishna continued her education at a 'run-down' school in her neighbourhood.
“We didn’t have electricity so I used to study under the light of an oil lantern,” she told Geo News.
In what may have been a hindrance to her education, Krishna was married when she was in ninth grade. “Fortunately my husband and in-laws were extremely supportive and encouraged me to continue my education,” she said.
In 2013, Krishna received her master’s degree in sociology from University of Sindh. All the while, she actively worked against bonded labour, sexual harassment at workplaces, and for the rights of women and the people of her village.
Speaking about her goals after being elected to the Senate, Krishna said, “I will not only represent women of Thar but act as a representative for women across the country and speak for their rights.”
She added, “Many laws have been drafted for the rights of women but none of them have been implemented – something I wish to change.” Highlighting the major issues faced by the people of Tharparkar, she said, “Child marriages and forced conversions are some of the pressing issues which need to be addressed urgently.”
Thanking the PPP leadership for nominating her in the Senate, Krishna clarified she has won on the women’s seat and not the minority’s seat.
Dalit, which means oppressed or broken people, has become an alternate collective identification for the 40 non-Muslim castes declared in the Schedule Castes Ordinance 60 years ago.
PPP also nominated the first-ever non-Muslim senator by electing a Dalit Dr Khatumal Jeewan as Senator in 2009 on a general seat. Engineer Gianchand was the second Dalit to be elected as Senator in 2015 by the PPP, also on a general seat.
#Pakistan - Classes begin at Malala-funded school in Shangla
A school established by Nobel Laureate Malala Yousufzai in her hometown of Shangla, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has begun operations.
The youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner took to Twitter to congratulate students of the school on their first day on Thursday.
“Congratulations to students at KKF Model School in Shangla on your first day! I was proud to give my @NobelPrize money to help build this school for girls in my home community. Thank you @MalalaFund, @Aman_Foundation, @TheBigHeartUAE & @susanmccaw,” she wrote.
Congratulations to students at KKF Model School in Shangla on your first day! I was proud to give my @NobelPrize money to help build this school for girls in my home community. Thank you @MalalaFund, @Aman_Foundation, @TheBigHeartUAE & @susanmccaw.
Malala established the school through the Malala Fund to enable all girls of the district to get a quality education.
In 2014, Malala vowed to construct a school and college in her home district. Speaking through a video-link at the ‘Malala Education Seminar’ in November 2014, she had said most of the children in her native district were deprived of education due to financial constraints. Malala had said her birthplace required more schools for girls.
“The Shangla district is without schools and if some areas have educational institutions these are without basic facilities,” she maintained.
“Twenty-five underprivileged children are being funded through this programme to get education at standard schools,” she had said and vowed that these children would be supported till completion of their education.
Malala was born in 1997 in the Shangla district where she spent her childhood till her parents migrated to the adjacent district of Swat.
The Nobel laureate set up the Malala Fund after the Taliban tried to assassinate her in October 2012 for asserting her right to go to school.
The Malala Fund supports the education and empowerment of girls in Pakistan and around the world and provides grants to civil society organisations and individuals focused on education.
The fund is run by a board of trustees, including Malala and her family.