Tag: Asma Jahangir

  • The lioness thwarted the wolves

    Tarek Fatah on Asma Jahangir’s final victory over the angry Islamists.

    For over 40 years the lioness of Pakistan stood alone, surrounded by a snarling pack of hyenas circling her for the kill. But they never dared come close to Asma Jahangir whose stare alone used to send many a jihadi and military general packing with tails tucked between their rears.

    …

    Asma Jahangir didn’t ever wrap her head in hijab, the flag of misogyny that has enamoured so many white women of privilege. She knew the piece of cloth represented Islamic radicalism.

    Only 66, she was also the UN Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran. While most Pakistanis, Indians and Iranians were shocked at the news of her death, Islamists of the region rejoiced.

    …

    But the lioness, even in death, left the wolves in agony.

    Mullahs gossiped in glee that no matter what Jahangir did in life, after her death her body would end up in their hands. This, because burial ceremonies are a monopoly of mosque-run cemeteries, and Islamic traditions (not the Quran) forbids women from being present at funerals.

    The plan was to bar her Canadian-educated daughters, female followers and non-Muslims who she often represented, from the ceremony in which they could then insult her through insinuations mumbled in incomprehensible Arabic prayers.

    Not so easy ayatollah. Asma Jahangir would not go quietly.

    Friends and family of Jahangir turned the tables by inviting the harshest critic of the Islamist establishment, Haider Maududi, who ironically is the son of the founder of the radical Jamaat-e-Islami (a Muslim Brotherhood sister group in the Indian subcontinent) to conduct the farewell prayers and rituals.

    Not only did an anti-Islamist lead her funeral prayer on Tuesday, but for the first time anywhere in the world, women of all ages joined the mixed-gender prayer, standing shoulder to shoulder with men in the front row — scores of them, some in the traditional Indo-Pakistani head cover ‘dopatta’, some even bare-headed, but not a single woman in hijab.

    As Tarek says at the end – Farewell, sister.

  • She was indispensable

    Moni Mohsin in the Guardian on Asma Jahangir:

    Looking through social media I am not surprised by the number of tributes to her, but by the fact that they come from her detractors as well as her supporters. The conservatives who branded her a traitor until last week are now acknowledging her courage. Whether that is out of political expediency or genuine feeling I cannot say. But for the besieged liberal community and the religious minorities of Pakistan, she was indispensable. When plainclothes security men barrelled into my sister’s home one night in 1999, dragging away my journalist brother-in-law at gunpoint, the first person she called was Asma. That’s how it was. If you wanted someone in your corner, you called Asma. And she would respond at once.

    When I heard the news of her death, my first thought, regrettably, was for myself: “Who will have our backs now?” I was not the only one. A legal watchdog and a political fighter, Jahangir patrolled the rights of secular liberals, religious minorities, the politically disenfranchised, wronged women, abused children; she even fought for the constitutional rights of the very same religious extremists and hard-right nationalists who would have had her silenced.

    …

    She began her legal career as a family lawyer. In 1980, along with her sister Hina Jilani and two friends, she set up a firm specialising in divorce, maintenance payments and custodial cases. It was her work with women that brought her to politics. She realised early on that while it was important to fight for oppressed individuals, what was needed was institutional reform and societal change. So when Zia ul-Haq, Pakistan’s third military dictator, amended the constitution to discriminate against women and religious minorities under the guise of an Islamising agenda, Jahangir publicly challenged his ordinance, questioning its moral underpinnings. He was a brutal dictator with a taste for public floggings who responded by slapping a blasphemy case against her, yet she did not shy away from the fight. Many years later, she wrote: “We may fight terrorism through brute force, but the terror that is unleashed in the name of religion can only be challenged through moral courage.”

    Terry Gross interviewed her in 2001.

  • A loss for the human rights movement globally

    Amnesty International on Asma Jahangir.

    “For decades, Asma bravely fought for the most disadvantaged people in Pakistan, often at great personal risk. She championed the cause of women, children, bonded labourers, religious minorities, journalists, the disappeared, and so many others. She confronted injustice wherever she saw it,” said Salil Shetty, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.

    Asma Jahangir began leading protests as young schoolgirl. At the age of 18, she fought for the release of her father, Malik Ghulam Jilani, who had been arbitrarily detained by the military government of Gen. Yahya Khan, leading to an historic Supreme Court judgment.

    A lawyer by training, Asma Jahangir and her sister, Hina Jilani, established Pakistan’s first all women legal firm in Lahore. Their clients included Christians facing death sentences on blasphemy charges, bonded labourers who had fled the oppressive grip of feudal landowners, and women who faced violence at home.

    Asma Jahangir was one of the leaders of the Women’s Action Forum (WAF), which confronted Gen. Zia-ul-Haq’s Hudood Ordinance, which discriminated against women. In 1983, Asma Jahangir and other WAF protestors were subject to fierce violence at the hands of the police. She was arrested for the first time.

    A pioneer of human rights in Pakistan, Asma Jahangir was also one of the founders of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a fiercely independent NGO she headed for several years.

    In 1995, in the face of violent threats from vigilante mobs, Asma Jahangir and Hina Jilani successfully defended two Christian teenagers, Salamat Masih and Rehmat Masih, in their appeals against death sentences for blasphemy.

    …

    In 2007, Asma Jahangir was placed under house arrest by then General Pervez Musharraf when he imposed a state of emergency, suspending the constitution and arbitrarily detaining hundreds of people, including judges, opposition politicians and human rights defenders.

    In 2010, she became the first woman to be elected President of the Supreme Court Bar Association, overcoming a campaign that was marked by scurrilous attacks on her and her family by rivals and critics in the media.

    …

    Asma Jahangir’s human rights work went far beyond Pakistan. She served as a UN Special Rapporteur three times – on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, on freedom of religion or belief, and, most recently, on Iran. At the time of her death, Asma Jahangir was also a member of Amnesty International’s Regional Advisory Group for the Asia-Pacific region.

    “Asma’s sudden death is a loss not just for Pakistan, or for South Asia, but for the human rights movement globally. She leaves behind a powerful legacy that we must all honour by giving voice to those who are not being heard,” said Salil Shetty.

  • A reputation for speaking truth to power

    The Times on Asma Jahangir:

    Ms. Jahangir, a human rights lawyer, had a reputation of speaking truth to power and defending the weak and the marginalized, women and minorities against injustice. She gained international acclaim for being the voice of conscience in a country where liberal, secular voices have been continuously under threat.

    She was the founding chairwoman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent group, and was a trustee of the International Crisis Group. She won several local and international awards and served as the United Nations rapporteur on human rights and extrajudicial killings.

    Ms. Jahangir never minced words while defending democracy and human rights, despite threats to her life, both from military dictators and militants. She championed the rights of religious minorities — especially those who were charged under the country’s blasphemy laws — and women and men killed in the name of honor.

    Image result for asma jahangir

    Sara Faruqi/Dawn

    She got a law degree from Punjab University in Lahore in 1978.

    Ms. Jahangir was exposed to politics and activism at an early age. Her father, Malik Ghulam Jilani, was a civil servant and a left-wing politician who was frequently jailed for opposing military dictators. Ms. Jahangir initially appeared in court to represent her jailed father.

    Her first foray into politics was in 1969, when she participated in a women’s march to the residence of the governor of Punjab and clashed with the police. In 1983, she was put under house arrest and later imprisoned when she campaigned for women’s rights and democracy during the rule of Gen. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq.

    The military and right-wing nationalists hated her, especially because she advocated peace with India.

    To many women in the country, Ms. Jahangir was an inspiration.

    “Asma Jahangir was a voice of the oppressed and an icon of courage and valor,” said Maryam Nawaz Sharif, the daughter and political heir of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. “She endured so much but chose to be on the right side of history.”

    Critics often questioned her focus on the country’s minorities and on women’s rights. She fended off such criticism as misplaced.

    “Yes, I am very unhappy, extremely anguished at human rights violations against Kashmiris in India or against Rohingyas in Burma or, for that matter, Christians in Orissa. But obviously I am going to be more concerned of violations taking place in my own house because I am closer to the people who I live with. I have more passion for them,” Ms. Jahangir told Herald.

    “And I think it sounds very hollow if I keep talking about the rights of Kashmiris but do not talk about the rights of a woman in Lahore who is butchered to death.”

    Pakistan can’t afford to lose people like her – the world can’t afford to lose people like her.

  • Asma Jahangir

  • Another comrade gone

    Oh damn. Damn damn damn. Asma Jahangir has died.

    Prominent Pakistani human rights activist and lawyer Asma Jahangir has died at the age of 66.

    She reportedly suffered a cardiac arrest and was taken to hospital, where she later died.

    The pro-democracy activist championed women’s rights throughout her career.

    She was imprisoned in 1983 and put under house arrest in 2007. Five years ago, leaked documents suggested that some intelligence officers had planned to kill her.

    Ms Jahangir called for an inquiry at the time, demanding the government “find the forces who wanted to silence” her.

    More recently she spoke out against BBC Persian journalists being put on trial in Iran, as part of her role as UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran.

    Pakistan cannot afford to lose any human rights activists, especially female ones.

    In her career, Ms Jahangir was a staunch defender of human rights and women’s rights, and a pro-democracy activist, and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.

    She worked closely with her sister Hina Jilani on many of her endeavours.

    In 2014 Ms Jahangir told AFP news agency she had seen changes in the perception of human rights in Pakistan.

    “There was a time that human rights was not even an issue in this country,” she said. “Then prisoners’ rights became an issue.”

    “Women’s rights was thought of as a Western concept. Now people do talk about women’s rights.”

    Women are human beings everywhere, including Pakistan.