Malala Yousufzai, the Pakistani girl who rose to international fame after the Taliban nearly killed her for her efforts to promote girls’ education, has been formally nominated for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize, according to NBCNews.com in an article by Kari Huus.
Her name was put forward by three members of the Norwegian parliament from the ruling Labor Party on their website Friday, which was the deadline for nominations.
Malala’s name was put forward because of "her courageous commitment to the right of girls to education. A commitment that seemed so threatening to the extremists that they chose to try and kill her," said parliamentarian Freddy de Ruiter on the Labor party web site.
Malala was attacked in October with two other girls while traveling home from school in Pakistan’s Swat valley. The gunman boarded the van and asked for her by name before firing three shots at her, singling her out for writing a blog that criticized the Taliban for barring girls for getting an education.
A week later, Malala was flown to a hospital in the UK for treatment. She is now facing a final major surgery to place a titanium plate over the hole left in her skull. While in the hospital she has received thousands of messages from well-wishers around the world, and continued to speak out on behalf of her cause, becoming a global icon.
The Norwegian MPs said they believed that Malala was "a worthy winner for many reasons. She has become an important symbol in the fight against destructive forces that want to prevent democracy, equality and human rights."
Prize winners are announced in October. The Stockholm-based Nobel Foundation, which has been awarding Nobel awards for physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace since 1901, said 231 names were submitted for the Peace Prize last year, including 41 organizations.
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