MALALA AND KAILASH WIN 2014 NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

Malala Yousafzai (Reuters/Andrea De Silva), Kailash Satyarthi (AFP Photo/Bobby Bank)

Oslo, 17 Dhulhijja 1435/11 October 2014 (MINA) – Human rights activists from Pakistan and India, Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi, have been named as the joint winners of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize.

They earned the award by “their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education,” the award’s committee said in a statement,  Russia Today quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA), Saturday.

“The Nobel Committee regards it as an important point for a Hindu and a Muslim, an Indian and a Pakistani, to join in a common struggle for education and against extremism,” said Thorbjoern Jagland, the head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

Seventeen-year-old Malala Yousafzai was pakistan-015/">shot in the head two years ago by the allegedly Taliban when she was on her way to school. She was targeted for being an active campaigner for girls’ rights to education.

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Malala survived the attack, and underwent treatment in the UK. She has continued her fight for human rights from there, as she is unable to return to Pakistan, facing death threats.

Pakistan’s prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, reacted to the award by describing Malala as the “pride of Pakistan.”

Yousafzai becomes the youngest Nobel Prize winner, bypassing Australian-born British scientist Lawrence Bragg, who received the Nobel Prize for Physics at the age of 25.

60-year-old Kailash Satyarthi, the other joint winner of the Peace Prize, is an Indian children’s rights advocate.

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He has actively campaigned against the use of child labor and in 1998 initiated an annual global march against the practice.

The Nobel Committee has praised Satyarthi for “maintaining Gandhi’s tradition” in his human rights campaigning.

“It’s an honor to all those children still suffering in slavery, bonded labor and trafficking,” Satyarthi told CNN-IBN TV after he learned of the award, Reuters reported.

Malala and Satyarthi will receive the prize, worth about $1.1 million, at a December 10 ceremony in Oslo, Norway. (T/R04/P3)

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Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)