Joya has become renown around the world as a courageous advocate of women’s rights and a fierce critic of the NATO war in Afghanistan.

Time Magazine, April 29, 2010

TIME magazine today named Malalai Joya to the 2010 TIME 100, the magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Joya has become renown around the world as a courageous advocate of women’s rights and a fierce critic of the NATO war in Afghanistan. The full list and related tributes appear in the May 10 issue of TIME, available on newsstands on Friday, April 30, and now at time.com.

Joya, now 32, was the youngest woman elected to the Afghan Parliament in 2005 but was later banished from her post because of her criticism of the warlords in Hamid Karzai’s government. Often referred to as “the bravest woman in Afghanistan”, she has survived five assassination attempts and lives an underground life today in Afghanistan, with relatives and supporters providing armed security at all times. Joya has traveled globally to speak out against the NATO occupation and the warlords, druglords and Taliban in her country, advocating instead for genuine democracy and independence for Afghanistan.

Her memoir, A Woman Among Warlords, was released last year in North America and has been translated into over a dozen languages. The TIME 100 is but the latest recognition for Joya, who has received human rights awards and honourary citizenships in a number of countries. The UK’s New Statesman magazine named Joya one of the ‘50 People Who Matter Today’ and referred to her as “a figurehead for peace and democracy campaigners around the world.” Noam Chomsky has said that Joya would have been a “truly worthy choice for the Nobel Peace Prize.”

Joya will be unable to travel from Afghanistan for the TIME 100 Gala event in New York City in May, but she recently wrote about her views on the escalating war in her country:

“Our people are deeply fed up. They have organized many anti-U.S. protests in the past months and if the occupation continues, the resistance will only grow. More than eight years of occupation have made life bleak, and we are tired of being pawns in the U.S. and NATO’s game for control of Central Asia. We can no longer bear the killing of our pregnant mothers, the killing of our teenagers and young children, the killing of so many Afghan men and women. We can no longer bear these ‘accidents’ and these ‘apologies’ for the deaths of the innocent.”

The TIME 100 list, now in its seventh year, recognizes the activism, innovation and achievement of the world’s most influential individuals. As Managing Editor Rick Stengel has said of the list in the past, “The TIME 100 is not a list of the most powerful people in the world, it’s not a list of the smartest people in the world, it’s a list of the most influential people in the world. They’re scientists, they’re thinkers, they’re philosophers, they’re leaders, they’re icons, they’re artists, they’re visionaries. People who are using their ideas, their visions, their actions to transform the world and have an effect on a multitude of people.”