Pakistan's
teenage activist Malala Yousafzai, shot by the Taliban for fighting for girls'
rights to education, was awarded the European Parliament's prestigious Sakharov
Prize for Freedom of Thought.
The
16-year-old was attacked in northwestern Pakistan by a group of armed
men who fired on her school bus.
"Today,
we decided to let the world know that our hope for a better future stands in
young people like Malala Yousafzai," chairman of the conservative
European People's Party (EPP), Joseph Daul, said on Thursday.
Malala,
who has become an emblem of the fight against the most radical forms of
Islamism, had also been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize but it went to
the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons on Friday.
Malala,
who has written a book about her ordeal, is still living in Britain a year
after the attack as she remains threatened by the Taliban who say they will
kill her should she return to Pakistan.
The
principal at her old school says that as Malala's fame has grown, so has fear
in her classrooms.
Past winners
The
Sakharov Prize is given by the European Parliament each year since 1988 to
commemorate Soviet scientist and dissident Andrei Sakharov.
Its
past winners include Nelson Mandela and Burmese activist Aung San Suu Kyi.
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Witness - A Schoolgirl's Odyssey
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Edward
Snowden had been nominated by the Green group in the parliament for what it
said was his "enormous service" to human rights and European citizens
when he disclosed secret United States surveillance programmes.
Yousafzai
was chosen as the winner after a vote among the heads of all the political
groups in the 750-member parliament.
Asked
about her conflicting dreams of becoming a doctor or a politician
during an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Thursday, she said
she wanted to help her homeland.
"I
want to become a prime minister of Pakistan," she said.
"I
can spend much of the budget on education," Malala said to applause and
laughter as she sat next to her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, a human-rights
activist and founder of an all-girls school in Pakistan.
Malala
addressed the UN on her 16th birthday, and she expects to meet Queen Elizabeth
II later this month.
Aljazeera
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