Hardline Pakistani cleric detained for threatening Malala

PESHAWAR AFP June11, 2021  - A firebrand Pakistani scholar has been detained for making death threats against Nobel prize laureate Malala Yousafzai over her comments on marriage, officials said Friday.   

Since surviving an assassination attempt by the Taliban at aged 15 in rural northwest Pakistan, the Oxford graduate has become a global figure promoting education for girls.  But a recent interview with the fashion magazine Vogue stirred debate in her home country when she questioned whether a legal union between a couple was necessary.   

“If you want to have a person in your life, why do you have to sign marriage papers, why can’t it just be a partnership?” she asked.  The issue was debated by MPs in her home province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, who said her comments were against Islam.   “Malala is dreaming to become the country’s prime minister but promoting obscenity,” cleric Sardar Ali told students of a local seminary in the northwestern city of Lakki Marwat last week.   He added that he would blow her up in a suicide attack if she returned.