Rhon­dor Dowlat

Ed­u­ca­tion ad­vo­cate Malala Yousafzai, 17, was not banned from speak­ing at the Masjid un Nur in Cara­pichaima dur­ing Eid prayers on Tues­day.Chair­man of the Work­ing Com­mit­tee at the mosque, Fa­reed Khan, told the T&T Guardian that on the con­trary, Yousafzai was in fact, giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ad­dress the Mus­lim women of the mosque, "in pri­vate, af­ter Salaat (prayers) while on the up­per floor with them."The ground floor is oc­cu­pied by the Mus­lim men and the Imam of the mosque, Ri­az Shah.

Yousafzai ar­rived at Pi­ar­co on Sun­day and was greet­ed by host Min­is­ter of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion, Fazal Karim.It was that same day, ac­cord­ing to Khan, that Karim con­tact­ed the mosque's com­mit­tee and Imam Shah and in­formed them that Yousafzai would be in at­ten­dance on Eid morn­ing for the per­form­ing of Salaat."We, in­formed the min­is­ter that our Eid pro­gramme was al­ready fixed for that day but was told that she (Yousafzai) would not be speak­ing but would on­ly be there for Salaat, so, this was the pre-arrange­ment and the agree­ment."Khan said Yousafzai and her en­tourage ar­rived at about 8 am on Tues­day and she was es­cort­ed up­stairs of the mosque, to the fe­male sec­tion, while her fa­ther and broth­ers were es­cort­ed down­stairs to the male sec­tion.

He al­so raised the is­sue where a fe­male se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer at­tempt­ed to des­e­crate the mosque by re­fus­ing to re­move her boots."She (the se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer) did so af­ter she was in­struct­ed to by her male co-se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel," he added.Khan said Yousafzai left the mosque im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter Salaat but re­turned short­ly af­ter, where she at­tempt­ed to speak to the con­gre­ga­tion."It was at this point that she was told she could not speak as it was not in the pre-arrange­ment made with the com­mit­tee and Karim," he said.He added, how­ev­er, that if the masjid's ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee, along with Shah, were told be­fore Eid that Yousafzai want­ed to ad­dress the Mus­lims in Cara­picha­ia­ma, spe­cial arrange­ments would have been made for her to do so, "but not on Eid day, as the pro­gramme was al­ready planned, with it be­ing kept very tight. Pro­ce­dures must be fol­lowed, es­pe­cial­ly at the mosque."

A com­mit­tee meet­ing was held on Wednes­day evening to dis­cuss the is­sue and it was agreed that an ad­di­tion­al meet­ing would be held soon, this time, with Karim.When con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, Karim said: "Well there is noth­ing I can say again. I mean, there is noth­ing I can tell you. I am in a meet­ing right now, so maybe an­oth­er time." He

then hung up.