Eight in Ten of Those Alleged to Have Shot Malala Were Acquitted

Here is what we know:

But on Friday, when the court published its written judgment, it revealed that only two of the accused men, identified as Izharullah Rehman and Israrur Rehman, had been convicted and imprisoned, sentenced to life. The eight others had been freed.  

“They were released for lack of evidence,” said Azad Khan, the regional deputy police chief, adding that the government would probably appeal the decision.  

Mr. Khan emphasized that there was “no conspiracy or mystery” in the case and that the initial, mistaken reports of the convictions had stemmed from the secretive nature of the trial.  

Still, news of the eight men’s release offered an illustration of the problems facing Pakistan’s judicial system, where incompetence, intimidation and expediency can conspire to frustrate justice in even the highest-profile cases.

I suspect they are letting some of the people who conspired to  shoot Malala go because of politics.  If so, I think it's despicable.

Malala Yousefzai Wins Nobel Prize

She is the youngest winner of the prize, and she's basically a boss. Her co-winner, Kailash Satyarthi, has helped save tens of thousands of children from a life of slavery and exploitation. His long-time advocacy against child labor in favor of children's education as a way out of poverty is complementary to Yousefzai's example. I think these choices are very fitting, because it needs to be understood that the best way to create a space for peace in the future is to make safe spaces for children to become the people they are meant to be--to know something about the world they will grow up to help create and to be free to make the best of it.

In a world where too many children are exposed to the horrors of war, abuse, and grinding poverty and labor, and are not well-enough exposed to a good education, sometimes not even good nutrition or basic sanitation,  I realize that the failure to give them a reasonable hope of a good future is what condemns them to a fearful life and people in developed nations to fear what they might become. Because even without a good education, children learn from what they see. If exposed to ignorance and hopelessness and superstition and hate--that's what they will know.

And that is what they will practice.

But the answer to combatting all that is so simple--books and pens and paper and attention and a dialog that gets opened up between a developing mind and everything that might be possible.  Here's to two very good examples of people working towards heading future generations in the right direction. You are doing it right.