Malala had life-saving surgery in the UK after being shot
Pakistani schoolgirl and campaigner Malala
Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by the
Taliban, has won the EU's Sakharov human rights
prize.
The 16-year-old activist was shot a year ago for
campaigning for better rights for girls.
The Sakharov Prize for free speech is awarded by the
European Parliament annually in memory of Soviet
physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov.
US whistleblower Edward Snowden had been a
contender for the prize.
The 50,000 euro ($65,000) prize is considered
Europe's top human rights award.
Malala rose to prominence in 2009 after writing a blog
anonymously for the BBC Urdu service about her life
under Taliban rule and the lack of education for girls.
She lived in Pakistan's mountainous Swat Valley and
her name became internationally known after the
Pakistan army pushed the Taliban out of the area in
2009.
The Taliban's Islamist doctrine puts harsh restrictions
on women's rights and one of the militants shot her as
she was riding in a bus with school friends.
"Today, we decided to let the world know that our
hope for a better future stands in young people like
Malala Yousafzai," said the head of the conservative
European People's Party (EPP), Joseph Daul.
Malala received a standing ovation in July this year for
an address to the United Nations General Assembly, in
which she vowed she would never be silenced.
MEPs in Strasbourg said Malala was "incredibly
brave" to continue promoting the rights of children.
Her new home is in Birmingham, in the UK.
She joins a distinguished list of winners of the Sakharov
Prize which includes South Africa's Nelson Mandela and
Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma, also known as Myanmar.
The award will be officially presented at a ceremony in
Strasbourg in November.
Three jailed Belarusian dissidents were also on the
shortlist for the prize this year, along with Edward
Snowden, who leaked thousands of documents detailing
US National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance activities
worldwide.
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