`This is only the beginning,` says Nobel winner Malala

While the world is celebrating Pakistani child education activist Malala Yousafzai`s winning the Nobel Peace Prize, the part of the Pakistani Taliban threatened to kill her.

“I felt more powerful and more courageous because this award is not just a piece of metal or a medal you wear or an award you keep in your room,” Malala, a student at Edgbaston High School for Girls in Birmingham, said to reporters after class on Friday. “I have received this award but this is not the end. This is not the end of the campaign I have started.“

She said, "I talked over the phone with him (Nobel Peace prize winner Kailash Satyarthi, Indian child rights activist) and we both decided that we`ll work together for the rights of children,” inviting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Mian Nawaz Sharif to attend the award ceremony in December. “Their joint selection is an obvious nod towards the ongoing global efforts to bring a peaceful end to Pakistan and India`s long-standing conflict with one another.” the US-based Foreign Policy magazine reported.

World leaders congratulated the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner. Queen Elizabeth II congratulated her in a Twitter message, breaking the tradition that the queen does not mention the result of the Nobel Peace Prize. U.S. President Barack Obama said, “The Nobel Committee reminds us of the urgency of their work to protect the rights and freedoms of all our young people.” Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan also posted a message on his Twitter, “There is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women. Congratulations Malala.” The Canadian government has decided to grant its honorary citizenship to Malala who will visit Canada on Oct. 22.

The spokesman of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar TTP, a hard-line breakaway faction of the TTP, tweeted on Friday night when the Nobel Peace Prize winners were announced, “Characters like Malala should know that we are not deterred by propaganda of [non-believers]. We have prepared sharp and shiny knives for the enemy of Islam.” In addition, he added, “Malala speaks so much against guns and armed conflicts. Does she not know that the founder of her recent Nobel award was the inventor of explosives?”

Malala, who had criticized the TTP, miraculously survived a gunshot wound to the head in 2012 after several rounds of surgery. Despite repeated threats from the TTP, she called for the education rights of women and children and became the winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. A strong backlash apparently came from the TTP as it inadvertently contributed significantly to making a humble village girl into the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner.