Sixteen-year-old Malala Yousefzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban last year for campaigning for education for girls, released her memoir "I am Malala" in October
NEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A ban on the book by teenage activist Malala Yousefzai by some Pakistani schools has been slammed by one of the country's biggest school associations who said it was a "publicity stunt", the Express Tribune reported on Monday.
The 16-year-old, who was shot in the head by the Taliban last year for campaigning for education for girls, released her memoir "I am Malala" in October.
A statement by the president of a Lahore-based school federation said it was "controversial" and would be banned in all its institutions.
However, other school associations as well as government officials told the Express Tribune that the book was not on the Pakistani curriculum so the book could not be banned.
"This appears to be a publicity stunt when the federation represents only a couple of thousand schools, located chiefly in Lahore," said Adeeb Javadani, the central president of All Pakistan Private Schools Management Association (APPSMA), which has over 40,000 registered schools.
"The government does not plan to teach Malala’s book in state and private schools, nor does it ask the schools to make it part of their libraries."
Malala, who won the European Union's prestigious human rights award in October, survived being airlifted to Britain for treatment after her attack on a school bus in Pakistan's Swat Valley.
The teenager who now goes to school in Britain was also a favourite for the Nobel Peace Prize, but lost out to the Hague-based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which is overseeing the destruction's of Syria's arsenal.
But despite being lauded by international institutions, the young girl courts controversy in her own country, where some right-wing elements accuse her for being under the influence of the West.
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