Canada will offer honorary citizenship to Pakistani teenage activist Malala Yousafzai.
Ms. Malala will become just the sixth person to be granted honorary Canadian citizenship after South African anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama, British business magnate Aga Khan and Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, state-run Radio Pakistan reported on Thursday.
The 16-year-old activist was shot by the Taliban last year in Swat Valley of Pakistan for speaking out in favour of girls’ rights to education and was also in the running for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. Ms. Malala was the youngest ever Nobel Peace Prize nominee.
Last week, she won the European Union’s prestigious Sakharov human rights prize and was welcomed at the White House by US President Barack Obama.
The Pakistani Taliban, however, has said that Ms. Malala had done “nothing” to deserve a prestigious EU rights award and vowed to try again to kill her.
