Malala Asks Authorities To Withdraw Her Name From College

Malala Yousafzai reading at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.

Pakistani teenage peace activist Malala Yousafzai has asked authorities in northwestern Pakistan to change the name of a girls college renamed after her.

Kamran Rehman, the civilian administrator of her native Swat district, said on December 20 that Malala had called him to ask him to change the name of the Government Girls Degree College Saidu Sharif.

The institution was named after Malala when she was shot by a Taliban gunman in October.

The students of the college, however, began protests on December 12 to demand that the government revoke the renaming.

The students fear the renaming will make their institution a target for Taliban extremists. Malala, 15, is being treated in a British hospital.

She rose to prominence in 2009 when she wrote a blog for the BBC Urdu service about Taliban atrocities in Swat.
With reporting by the BBC