Nobel prize winner Malala Yousafzai said mindset of terrorism and hatred can be defeated by providing ‘quality education’ to children.
She was speaking at the ceremony organized by her family in city of Birmingham to mark first anniversary of Army Public School attack. Two survivors of the attack, Ahmad Nawaz, 14, and Mohammed Ibrahim, 13, were also present in the event
“It’s not just needed in Pakistan but across the world. If we want to end terrorism we need to bring quality education so we defeat the mindset of terrorism mentality and of hatred,” Malala said.
The Nobel prize winner condemned Donald Trump’s views on Muslims.
“Well, that’s really tragic that you hear these comments which are full of hatred, full of this ideology of being discriminative towards others,” Malala told AFP, in response to recent comments by the US Republican presidential candidate.
“There are these terrorist attacks happening, for example what happened in Paris or what happened in Peshawar a year ago,” she said, referring to last month’s attack in Paris that killed 130 people.
Trump has been heavily criticised for calling for a ban on all Muslims entering the United States after a shooting rampage in California that left 14 people dead.
Speaking at the ceremony in the city of Birmingham, central England, Malala’s father Ziauddin Yousafzai also criticised Trump’s comments.
“It will be very unfair, very unjust that we associate 1.6 billion with a few terrorist organisations,” he said, referring to the number of Muslims worldwide.
Nawaz, dressed in a traditional shalwar kameez, recounted the horror of the December 16, 2014 Peshawar attack, in which 17 adults were also killed.
“I saw my teacher burned alive in that incident and the friends with whom I was playing,” he told AFP.
“I was surrounded by the dead bodies of those friends. So it was the horrifying experience of my life and I still have nightmares.”
Nawaz was shot in the arm. His brother was killed.
Ibrahim was in a wheelchair, having been paralysed from the waist down.
“When I was watching all these graphics and all these news on television, my wife was crying, I was crying,” Malala’s father told AFP.
“It was unbearable. It was very hard to watch. Our own trauma revived,” he said.
“We don’t curse people, its a sin to curse and we never cursed Talibans for attacking our daughter, but I must say we cursed them that day.”
