For her relentless campaigning against laws that discriminate against women and for continuously speaking truth to power, Jahangir was threatened, assaulted in public and placed under house arrest. Besides her work in Pakistan, Asma Jahangir has promoted human rights internationally through her long service with the United Nations. She died of a heart attack at the age of 66 but remains a great source of inspiration for human rights defenders beyond Pakistani borders.
Pakistani human rights activist and lawyer (1952–2018)
Asma Jahangir (Urdu: عاصمہ جہانگیر, 27 January 1952 – 11 February 2018) was a Pakistani human rights lawyer and social activist who co-founded and chaired the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and AGHS Legal Aid Cell. Jahangir was known for playing a prominent role in the Lawyers' Movement and served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief and as a trustee at the International Crisis Group.
From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Birth Name:
Asma Jilani
Native Name:
عاصمہ جہانگیر
Alternative Names:
Asma Jilani Jahangir
From Wikidata (CC0)
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A decade later, long after democratic rule was restored, she was still denouncing the power of Pakistan’s military and intelligence establishments and the façade of civilian control. In a lecture at Oxford University in 2017, she charged that “the military controls the country through the deep state”, while “the politicians are playing at democracy, hanging onto the cliff with their claws. And then the boot comes.”